President Cyril Ramaphosa. (@MYANC/X)
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa may have put the cat among the pigeons when he told hundreds of party councillors gathered in Johannesburg this week that the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) governs better in municipalities. Ramaphosa urged his comrades to look at what it did right and learn from the opposition.
Party chair Gwede Mantashe appeared to agree when he called out the councillors, who were defying him by singing while he spoke, saying it was this indiscipline that was at the centre of the party’s poor performance in local government.
They sang well, Mantashe said, but they had no councils to show for it, and had no capacity to run municipalities.
The ANC had a day earlier concluded a national executive committee meeting, where it discussed service delivery problems and sought to map out a way to ensure that it performs better in next year’s local government elections, or face the bloodbath it experienced in last year’s general elections, where its support dropped to 40%.
Ramaphosa was very clear that if the councillors did not improve their performance, it would spell the “death” of ANC dominance in local government.
While Ramaphosa is correct to say the DA performs better on its track record where it governs, his admission, coming from the top of the party, says to voters that we must not accept mediocrity when we vote next year. Their president has spoken, now it is time for us to see these councillors get to work.
The comments confirm the ANC, which has preached self-correction for years now, is aware it is not producing quality cadres who are capable of delivering on its promise for a better life for all. The party, beset by endless internal squabbles, deepening factionalism and the quest for self-enrichment, needs to act on poorly performing municipalities as a matter of extreme urgency.
As Ramaphosa was at pains to explain, it can no longer be business as usual. The ANC will go into the elections facing stiff competition from uMkhonto weSizwe, led by its former president, Jacob Zuma, the Economic Freedom Fighters, Action SA and the DA, among others.
In a multiparty democracy, we can choose to elect public representatives who serve the people, not the get-rich-quick politicians masquerading as servants of the people.
For the ANC, last year’s general elections sent a very clear message that the party ought to do better, or face total collapse as have other liberation movements in the region. It’s now up to the party’s councillors, at the coalface of service delivery, to save the ANC by returning to its values and putting people ahead of personal interests.
Ramaphosa is right: they must shape up or ship out.