How the ANC continues to contradict its hyped renewal processes

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has caused a stir, especially within his party, the African National Congress (ANC), by candidly admitting that the best run municipalities would most likely be led by the Democratic Alliance (DA).

- SIPHAMANDLA ZONDI

The stir is partly over a sense of embarrassment ‘that this widely held view that the ANC is not running municipalities well, or that it is actually running them down, is now being echoed by the party president.

The brouhaha is partly over worries that this public admission gives an unsolicited endorsement to the DA and a boost to their local government campaign to the detriment of the ANC.

The ANC has been battling a huge challenge of loss of votes in the last few elections, the most significant of which was in 2024 when it lost its 30-year grip on national government and returned via a coalition in which the ANC and the DA are kingmakers. This was a catastrophe for the ANC both in terms of image and in terms of capacity to deliver its vision of a national democratic revolution in South Africa.

This compounded the huge challenge of public perception in which the ANC has by virtue of its decision and non-decisions cast itself as a party that cannot be trusted to move things forward. It has been associated with corruption to the point that Ramaphosa had to admit openly at the Zondo Commission probing state capture a few years ago that the ANC had become synonymous with corruption. This has a corrosive effect on the public standing and power of the ANC.