Premier promises to whip province into shape

Acting Gauteng ANC chairman David Makhura is adamant that the party will improve its performance in the province to boost the party’s performance in next year’s general elections.

The province is expected to turn into a political battleground, and opposition parties the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters have already invested a large portion of their resources in their election campaigns to topple the governing ANC from power in the 2019 elections.

In 2016, the ANC lost two key metros in Gauteng — Tshwane and Johannesburg — and narrowly won the Ekurhuleni municipality.

Makhura and his ANC comrades in Gauteng have blamed former president Jacob Zuma’s many scandals, including Nkandla, as the reason behind the party’s electoral decline over the past few years.

But now that Zuma is out of the picture and Cyril Ramaphosa is in it, Makhura believes the party stands a good chance to gain power in Gauteng.

“They [the opposition] did believe before the ANC elective conference [in December] that they will win Gauteng. All I can tell you now is that they are very demoralised. They cannot hide that. They may try to pretend. They are very demoralised that the ANC has elected a president who has brought a lot of hope among South Africans that our country will be back on track,” said Makhura.

“We will fix the problems in our economy and help to ensure that all the major social and economic issues facing our people are addressed effectively.

“Essentially, the opposition, in all their plans, they were really banking on ANC decisions, not on their capability. They were praying that the ANC does not elect a leadership that will be able to win so much confidence. I want to say that, as Gauteng province, we are extremely confident.”

He said the party would hold its provincial conference in May to elect the new leadership that will campaign for the party ahead of next year’s elections.

“We will have our regional conferences completed in April and the provincial conference in May so that the ANC [can] focus on one thing and one thing only — how do we recover lost ground and restore public confidence in the work that we are doing for the people of Gauteng.

“Essentially, I’m whipping the system of government. I’m whipping officials, I’m whipping my colleagues in Cabinet that we must make sure that we don’t let our people down.

“Renewal and change is something that our people must feel in every area of our work — in education, in healthcare, in the economy, in housing, in fighting crime. Our people must feel this re-energised machinery,” said Makhura.