Zuma concedes poll ‘setback’

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has made an about-turn on his views on the ANC’s losses in last year’s local government elections by conceding the party had “suffered a serious setback”.

Zuma said the national executive committee (NEC) meeting soon after last year’s elections had “attributed our loss of support to perceptions in society that we are soft on corruption, we are self-serving and that the ANC is arrogant”.

“These are based on research findings we had undertaken before the elections, which proved to be correct,” said Zuma at the ANC’s national policy conference (NPC) yesterday.

These views were in contrast to what the president has previously said.

He had poured cold water on the party’s losses, comparing them to losing a penalty shoot-out and saying, if elections were held now, the ANC would “show them who the best is” and would rule “until Jesus comes back to save us”.

Yesterday, however, the president acknowledged that the electoral losses were bad for the party.

“Our movement suffered a serious setback in the August 3, 2016 local government elections and experienced a decline of about 8% of the national vote.

“Our discussions here will reflect on these elections for lessons to be drawn and solutions to be found.

“We lost control of key metropolitan municipalities including Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.”

Political analyst Professor Susan Booysen said she was not surprised the president made a major climb-down from his previous assertions, as the ANC’s discussion documents had admitted there was a problem in the way the party’s electoral support had dropped.

“The president’s speech, in many respects, was a statement on the essence of the policy documents. He was there as the president of the ANC, so he could not really deviate from the speech, and he could not deny that the party suffered major losses,” Booysen said.