Pyrrhic victory for ANC
Party should be absorbed in task of finding out how to recover from weakest ever poll
NEVER before has the ANC won an election as unconvincingly – by its own earlier standards – as last week’s.
Down from 62.2% in 2014 to 57.5% in 2019, the writing is ominously on the wall, especially given that it won the 2009 election with 65.7% and in 2004 with 69.6%.
The continuously decreasing trajectory of its power at the polls is very clear. As clear is therefore that the good old days of unrivalled ANC electoral hegemony is probably gone for good.
Two weeks ago, I predicated in this paper that the ANC would win somewhere between 55% to 58%.
But it is when such a somewhat Pyrrhic victory is placed within the current, deeply troubled context in the country that alarm bells are resoundingly ringing, to such an extent that President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC should spend no time celebrating. Instead, they should be immediately absorbed in figuring out how to recover from the party’s weakest state since 1994.
The biggest problems facing the rapidly declining power of the ANC is the present deepest economic, social and political crisis since 1994, the vicious and debilitating internal factionalism, the corruption cases tumbling out of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, and the unprecedented eruption of black township protests in the run-up to the elections.
Among these very difficult challenges for the ANC, the most important – if it hopes to arrest the stark decline it is suffering at the polls – must be dealing with fierce township protests.
The vast majority of the electorate reside in those townships, where, as we were reminded by television footage during the elections, many or even most live under conditions which are often a shocking shame.
If we want to understand the sheer fury with which these protests regularly occur, we need look no further for reasons why. Those conditions are so unacceptably appalling that I would advise Ramaphosa to make addressing them his highest priority.
Related advice is for him to pay serious attention to the “service delivery” protests which dramatically escalated in the lead up to the elections.
Such protests have not only made important connections between voting and conditions in townships, but are therefore making justifiable demands.
Since Ramaphosa promised at the recent May Day celebrations that the black working class and its needs and interests would receive the utmost attention by his administration, he must realise that both trade unions and township residents are going to expect tangible results once he assembles a new Cabinet.
Such importance is reinforced by the fact that for several years South Africa has been the protest capital of the world.
As a result of repeated disappointments, many former members and supporters of the ANC gravitated towards opposing parties, as evinced, once again, by last week’s election results.
The only way in which Ramaphosa can hopefully stop and reverse the electoral decline of the ANC is to not only promise changes, but to literally put money where his mouth is, by reflecting such commitment in annual government budgets, especially regarding the atrocious lack of basic services, such as water, sanitation and electricity, in many townships and rural areas.
But unless he succeeds in rooting out corruption, much of such budgetary increases will probably be devoured by it.
Furthermore, the ANC is so troubled, vulnerable and divided that if Ramaphosa is as committed as he claims he is to its “renewal”, he also must staff the state, at all levels and in all areas, with not only people committed to his corruption-free vision, but who are equally competent enough in their respective areas of work.
The ANC’s bankrupt cadre deployment policy has been an unmitigated failure at all levels of the state, which also arguably paved the way for gross corruption within it.
But in order to inspire greater confidence in the electorate, especially its working-class majority, Ramaphosa needs to urgently try to go back to what he stood and fought for when he was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.
He was then a committed and unwavering socialist. I recall attending the union’s congress in 1987, where the words “Freedom Means Socialism”, in bold and large red letters, were emblazoned across the conference hall.
When it is least expected of him, can Ramaphosa surprisingly return to those radical policies, when it is most needed, to deal with the current crisis?
“The ANC’s bankrupt cadre deployment policy has been an unmitigated failure at all levels of the state…