Deputy president DD concedes it's coalition time

An arrogant party that is bleeding members and voters, and whose leaders are perpetually in one scandal or another.

This is the picture painted by the ANC’s organisational report, a diagnosis of its state of affairs in the past five years.

Delivering the report on Saturday, ANC deputy president David Mabuza conceded that in elections the party would drop to below 50% in Gauteng, and potentially in KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and the Northern Cape. It was set to dip below 50% nationally too.

Mabuza said the narrative of coalition governments had become more dominant after the 2021 local government elections.

“Post-2021 has demonstrated that most parties are united to keep [the] ANC out of power. It is therefore clear that the ANC leadership must strengthen its coalition strategy as these have become our new reality. We however need to work harder in winning back these municipalities and spare ourselves the trouble of working with small, over-ambitious, unreasonable and very small parties.

“The NEC [national executive committee] held a session on [an] approach to coalitions to engage opposition parties and regularly report to officials of the national working committee and the NEC.

“In its engagements on the reports of the coalitions task team, the NEC noted that past and recent experience of coalitions showed that they tend to be fluid and volatile,” the report read.

Currently, Gauteng's electoral support stands at 36%. During the 2006 local government elections the ANC got 62.5% of votes in Gauteng, before declining sharply last year.

During the 2019 general election the ANC received 57.5% at the polls and this was during the height of Cyril Ramaphosa's popularity with the voting majority.

The party has been on a steady decline since 2009 when it was on 65.9%. In the 2014 elections, the ANC dropped to 62.1%.

After last year's vote, the ANC controls only two out of SA's eight metros.

The party's electoral support continues to slide, quickened by ANC members implicated in cases of corruption.

Following the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, more than 200 names of ANC members appeared in the final state capture report handed to Ramaphosa.

Those implicated in the Zondo report include Nomvula Mokonyane, who is nominated as ANC deputy secretary-general. Others who are contesting either for the top six or NEC positions include national chair Gwede Mantashe, Zizi Kodwa, Malusi Gigaba, David Mahlobo, Faith Muthambi, Thabang Makwetla and Mosebenzi Zwane.

Zondo's report has been highly criticised by some implicated in the report, alleging it was being used as a political tool to purge those who were not part of the Ramaphosa faction.

The organisational report also noted senior members of the ANC were increasingly summoned to appear before the party's integrity commission for allegedly bringing the party into disrepute. 

Since 2019, at least 41 members have appeared before the commission, some more than once.