Last month, social activist Wayne Duvenage wrote in Daily Maverick that the ANC’s renewal is a “pipe dream” and that 2024 marks the beginning of the ANC’s decline. According to him, the current dynamics indicate that the ANC will not gain a majority of votes in the 2024 elections.

The ANC Gauteng Provincial leadership met from 5 to 7 February 2022 to assess and analyse the cause of the ANC losing the elections in all Gauteng’s metro municipalities. They didn’t just meet to discuss and analyse, they drew up a plan of action to make sure they wouldn’t lose the 2024 provincial elections. 

Without a doubt, if the ANC does not make a radical transformation and accelerate service delivery before 2024 the party might lose state power to the opposition parties. 

In the 2021 Local Government Elections, the ANC suffered a serious blow after losing three metro municipalities, namely Tshwane, City of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. Others have speculated that the ANC might lose elections in 2024 in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and overall nationally. 

The ANC Lekgotla served as a moment of self-reflection, like the Morogoro conference in 1969 that was largely about self-reflection on the state of the ANC’s capabilities to carry out the revolutionary struggle of national liberation. 

From the 1960s, the ANC was in a stalemate position in which the liberation Struggle was dismissed as a far-fetched dream, and the leadership was not in a position to launch a guerrilla war against the apartheid government due to its magnitude. To address Umkhonto we Sizwe’s (MK) reluctance to confront the apartheid regime, the ANC convened the Consultative Conference in 1969.  

Chris Hani and other members of MK spent almost two years in Gaborone Prison before writing a letter to then ANC President OR Tambo, criticising the ANC leadership for its incompetence and for ignoring MK soldiers who participated in the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns. 

As an example of the ANC leadership overlooking MK soldiers while living in luxury, Joe Modise’s life in Lusaka can be cited. During the time when Modise lived in a posh suburb and drove expensive cars, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda warned him that he should not brag about his wealth because some of the cars could not even be afforded by Zambian ministers. 

At our ANC Gauteng lekgotla earlier in the month, as I observed posh cars parked in the parking lot and owned by our ANC comrades, I realised that the era of Joe Modise is back, now under the democratic state, with politicians driving cars they cannot afford. From this, we can determine that the ANC is currently going through a crisis.

As the ANC stands today, we are in a similar situation to the ANC in the 1960s. While it became clear that factionalism has widened and MK soldiers were growing dissatisfied with the leadership, OR Tambo’s ability and discipline saved the ANC from becoming its own gravedigger.  

The ANC’s survival in a democratic state is threatened by the decline of state power in Gauteng. In the absence of state power, the ANC will be less relevant, as it won’t be able to translate its policy assumptions into effective societal change. The politics of transforming society is deeply contested within the ideologies and assumptions of different political parties. 

The recent ANC Gauteng lekgotla proved to be an opportunity for self-reflection. ANC Provincial Chairperson and Premier David Makhura explained clearly why the ANC lost state power in three major metro municipalities. He cited several pathologies that contributed to the decline of the ANC in the metros. 

There is a growing concern with inequality in Gauteng, which is one of the pathologies that contributed to the fall of the ANC. Premier Makhura did not hesitate to point out that the quality of life in Gauteng has rapidly declined since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. 

He presented the second thesis of the pathology that Gauteng is growing due to immigration and in-migration. The only provinces experiencing high immigration growth are Gauteng and Western Cape. Despite this, I cannot ignore the fact that our ANC government has not created jobs for years. 

Moreover, Statistics SA has found that unemployment stands at 37% in Gauteng. The metro municipalities also carry a high level of unemployment — for example, Johannesburg with 40.8% unemployment, Tshwane with 36.1% and Ekurhuleni with 33.7% unemployment. The ANC’s electoral decline in the metros in recent years has been caused in part by high unemployment, because unemployment was lower in the early 2000s when the ANC enjoyed electoral support to the extent that it received a two-thirds majority in 2004.  

As a result of the unrest in Gauteng in July 2021, Makhura emphasised the disparities of poverty and inequalities in our province. Political scientist Elmer Schattschneider recognised that economic inequality represented a form of voter suppression as far back as his 1960 book The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. 

Interestingly, Makhura makes the point that economic inequality has resulted in affluent, wealthy South Africans being able to set the terms of the debate. Thus, they can get the results they desire in the 2024 provincial elections.  

Poor and working-class people have less incentive to vote since they are not favoured by the political system. The voter turnout in Gauteng declined as unemployment, inequality, and poverty increased. The IEC reports that in Gauteng, 6,175,785 individuals were registered to vote, but only 43% of them actually voted. It shows that 3,520,197 people did not vote (more than the number of people who did). As a result, Makhura said that ANC members in Gauteng should be grateful that many did not vote, rather than voting for opposition parties, because this would have been the greatest blow to the ANC in Gauteng. 

The legitimacy of the state is undermined the more people choose not to vote. Consequently, the municipalities that are run through coalitions, such as Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekhurhuleni, work under substantial uncertainty. In order to maintain power, the mayor of Johannesburg must reconcile the interests of her party, ActionSA, EFF, Cope, IFP, etc. Different political parties have their own policy assumptions, so this is not good for public policy.

The series of protests by residents of Soweto over the lack of services ought to have served as a warning to the ANC that the people of Gauteng will not vote for it at the local government polls in 2021. 

The last thesis Premier Makhura presented was that ANC internal factional battles contributed to the demise of the ANC. Makhura, as well as all members of the Provincial Executive Committee, remains responsible for the deepening divisions within the ANC in Gauteng. They were the ones assigned the task of bringing the organisation together for the purpose of establishing a non-racist, non-sexist, and developmental state.

In an interesting turn of events, the ANC PEC indicated that the loss of power in our metro municipalities signifies setbacks that can be addressed to regain state power. A strong ANC Provincial Executive Committee before and after provincial congress will be a key factor in securing electoral support for the ANC if it recommits to service delivery, creating jobs, and having a united ANC Provincial Executive Committee.  

The lekgotla of the Gauteng ANC was a crucial moment for self-reflection as it determined a plan of action for regaining state power in Gauteng’s metros. In 1969, the Morogoro Conference set a plan of action for the ANC through the drafting of a strategy and tactics document which suggested military means would be used to seize power, while the Gauteng ANC lekgotla develops a plan to address the infrastructure deficit, ensure the safety of residents, and address the electricity problem in Soweto.  

The ANC Gauteng lekgotla provided its members and leadership with self-correcting tools. Jacob Khawe, Provincial Secretary of the ANC, noted that the ANC’s ability to win the 2024 provincial and national elections will be determined by the unity of the movement towards social and economic transformation from now until 2024. DM