How the ANC can win Western Cape – a step-by-step guide

NO ONE can be surprised that it has ended this way with the ANC in the Western Cape once again under administration from Luthuli House. Marius Fransman was never a closet calamity. Political disaster was written all over him as a leader right from the start.

Put another way, he wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he was an undisguised wolf – an old school ideologue, a bruiser.

It’s a scary thought that he was, for four years, our Deputy Minister for International Relations and Co-operation – Marius the diplomat nogal!

The ANC in the Western Cape is a shambles. To be fair to Fransman, it was one when he took over in 2011, but it’s gone further backwards under his watch. They have zip chance of making significant progress in the municipal elections.

As the party’s Top Six contemplates another fine mess, largely of their own making, they should use this checklist to guide them in the tough task of rebuilding:

Fransman must go. He’s a liability inside and outside the party irrespective of the outcome of the police inquiry into the tawdry allegations.

Whoever leads needs local credibility. Fransman’s original elevation was engineered unopposed. A deployed cadre or an imposed leader is doomed to fail.

Use the administration period to get branches ship-shape. Hold a vote among those in good standing and then accept the outcome, irrespective of whichever faction the winner belongs to or whom he/she supports in the all-consuming national leadership contest.

Get the reality of Western Cape politics that the ANC has never been in the majority here, so a simple hardline appeal to core supporters will not bring power. The party has to find a way to appeal to people who have never voted for it before by softening its tone and updating its lexicon from Marius’s (and Tony Ehrenreich’s) aggressive “democratic socialist revolution”.

Understand that the long game of relying on a rising percentage of African voters boosted by an Eastern Cape influx will not be enough given the apolitical trend among many of them. The DA’s core is always more likely to vote.

Allow the local leader some distance from national policies or party utterances which damage the cause in this province.

Start small. If the new leader is simply efficient, open to criticism, capable of building bridges, listens and isn’t doing desperate deals with dodgy characters, it will be an important first step. A more charismatic figure can close the deal further down the line.

Keep your eye on the prize. The DA looks impregnable in both the province and the city at the moment, especially in contrast to the performance of the ANC nationally, but their leadership reserves are thin.

Helen Zille is gone in 2019 (or sooner) and, at 64, Patricia de Lille surely only has one more mayoral term in her. Whoever follows in their footsteps will be under immense pressure.