“I am a product of the African National Congress”, the globally renowned, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and once world’s most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, declared at the last sitting of the first democratic Parliament on 26 March 1999.

On that occasion Isithwalandwe Nelson Mandela went on to declare that if he had been able to help take our country a few steps towards democracy, non-racialism and non-sexism, it was because he was a product of the ANC, a movement for justice, dignity and freedom that produced countless giants in whose shadow they found their glory.

Recently, some opposition parties and in particular the DA have attempted to separate our leaders from the ANC. In attempting to divorce Nelson Mandela from the ANC, they have tried to drive a wedge between our people and the movement to which Madiba had dedicated his life. In fact, if anything, the words of Tata Madiba reminded us that if we wish to pursue justice, dignity and freedom then we would easily find our home in the ANC; a place where these ideals come naturally.

Ironically there has also been an attempt by some to separate President Cyril Ramaphosa from the ANC. These have argued that there is President Ramaphosa and then there is the ANC. They have sought to portray an ANC separate from its president and insisted that the ANC was intolerable of the leadership and vision of our president. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Like Tata Madiba, it was the ANC that produced a cadre such as President Ramaphosa and just like it called upon him to lead our country through the critical days of the constitutional transition, so too it called upon him to lead our country through these difficult days of renewal, investment and unity.

The ANC has been the first to acknowledge that these are difficult days. Our triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment have led to violent crime and an upset in social cohesion. Probably for the first time, since the nineties, has our country seen such racial polarisation and violent crime in our townships precisely because of these challenges.

Recognising the need for deep renewal, which demands a rejection of corruption and all forms of State Capture, the ANC of which the Western Cape was part of, chose Ramaphosa, as President at Nasrec in 2017, to lead these fights and also ensure a transition into a corrupt free society. Yet like the transformation into a democratic society, with the Constitution as its cornerstone, this fight against corruption, maladministration and wasteful expenditure will not be easy but we shall be victorious.

As in the nineties, when we gave the lead negotiator, Comrade Ramaphosa, space and time to negotiate, so too now we must give President Ramaphosa space and time to fight corruption and pursue investment.

In the past 14 months alone, our President has taken the fight against corruption by the horns and announced several commissions in order to deal with State Capture. From the Zondo Commission of Inquiry to the firing of Advocates Jiba and Mwrebi, President Ramaphosa has personified the saying: a new broom sweeps clean. This was not easy, because it naturally caused an embarrassment for the ANC especially before an election but the president showed that it needed to be done and displayed his commitment to tackling this plague.

Sadly, unlike President Ramaphosa who has had the honesty to admit that things have gone wrong, the DA is in denial about its own corruption, nepotism, maladministration and wasteful expenditure. Never will the DA admit to doing wrong.

Perhaps as the former DA leader of KwaZulu-Natal, Sizwe Mchunu, wrote recently in the Cape Times, the only reason why corruption is made so big in the ANC is because it is the biggest party in South Africa and the governing party at that. He went on to acknowledge that the ANC is a massive organisation and unfortunately a massive organisation always has its mistakes made massive. But the ANC is bigger than its problems and, as with the fight against apartheid, it has a bigger political will and way to deal with these problems.

Part of that will and way was to elect President Ramaphosa. He is our leader and we trust him to deal with the challenges faced not only by the ANC but also by South Africa. The polls are clear: unlike any other party leader, Cyril Ramaphosa is the most credible leader in the country at the moment and it is because of this that the ANC chose him as our presidential candidate.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, South Africans, especially those in the Western Cape, must know that that man is no one else but Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa. On 8 May millions of South Africans will agree that he is the man in our hour of need. DM

Faiez Jacobs is the provincial secretary of the ANC in the Western Cape.