ANC infighting led to Nquthu loss – analysts
INFIGHTING among the ANC in Kwazulu-natal was the reason behind the IFP’S victory in the by-election in Nquthu on Wednesday, say analysts. The IFP won 14 wards, while the ANC won three.
This is the same municipality that the IFP lost to its splinter party, the NFP, which went into coalition with the ANC in the 2011 local government election.
Professor Bheki Mngomezulu, political lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, and independent analyst Thabani Khumalo attributed ANC’S defeat to internal squabbling.
“The bad publicity the ANC has attracted has pushed the voters away and if things are not resolved the party is going to lose more ground to parties like the IFP,” said Khumalo.
He said the IFP could use the divisions in the ANC to attract more voters.
But Mngomezulu cautioned that the IFP’S victory in Nquthu cannot be used to gauge the party’s performance in the 2019 general election.
“If the anger that most ANC members harboured towards their own party vanishes, they will vote for the ANC and a totally different story may emerge in 2019,” he explained.
He said the divisions in the ANC in KZN were precipitated by the heated 2015 ANC provincial elective conference which saw Sihle Zikalala defeat Senzo Mchunu as provincial chairperson. Mchunu was later recalled as premier, which angered his supporters. This led to a fallout between their supporters and subsequently divided the province into two factions.
“Some of ANC members decided to abstain from voting, which put the ANC at risk of being defeated in polls,” Mngomezulu added.
He also faulted the way the party handled the candidates’ nomination process leading to the local government election last August, which he said led to disgruntlement among many party members.
He warned that defeat was on the cards for the ANC in 2019 if the party did not deal with its setbacks.
“The ANC has weathered greater storms than the current one like the Morogoro conference held in Mozambique in 1969, but they were able to find common ground because they dealt with issues, not personalities,” said Mngomezulu.
Khumalo said the coalition of the ANC and NFP in some municipalities in KZN was bound to collapse. The NFP was “as good as dead”, he said.