The ANC can still regain the electoral support it lost in the last national general elections. However, this can only happen if the party becomes self-aware and acknowledges that some of its leaders are the reason for its consistent decline.
The ANC must pause and reflect on its experiences from the 1930s, when James Calata and Reverend Mahabane presided over its organisational redesign. It must also reframe its approach by defending and maintaining a culture of fearless discussions within the ANC and society.
The ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) needs to make decisions that might be unpopular, such as restructuring and strengthening the Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee (PEC).
Tony Blair, in his book On Leadership, states that for an organisation to be strong, it needs a solid centre, which requires decisive leadership unclouded by external noise. He uses the metaphor of a Premier League team selecting a new coach by asking enthusiastic fans to vote, which would be disastrous. Similarly, the ANC needs to strengthen its centre and make decisive decisions without being swayed by the masses.
The ANC NEC must consider restructuring and strengthening the ANC PEC in light of electoral declines since 2009. Discussions on dissolving and strengthening the ANC Gauteng are expected to continue in 2025, following the embarrassing decline in the last national general elections.
The table below shows the ANC electoral decline in Gauteng since 1994:
The ANC’s fate depends on the performance of ANC Gauteng, as it is the province with the highest population of about 17 million, and substantial votes are accumulated there. The ANC’s performance in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will always mirror its overall performance.
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In essence, the ANC as the hitherto majority party has been suffering significant declines since the local elections of 2016, followed by a decimal point provincial majority for the ANC in 2019, and further change away from the ANC in the municipal elections of 2021.
Need for strategic interventions
Gauteng PEC member Lebogang Maile, in an interview with Mawande Amashabalala of the Sunday World, argued that dissolving the ANC in Gauteng would be disastrous.
I agree that disbanding the ANC in Gauteng without a clear plan to restructure the PEC to strengthen the ANC’s ground structures in preparation for the 2026 local government elections and the 2029 national general election will serve no purpose.
Poor electoral performance needs no justification, as it implies business as usual. Those who didn’t perform well in the last national general elections must take responsibility. The NEC should note that under the current leadership, there’s little that can be done to regain lost ground without rebuilding the ANC’s structures from the regional to the provincial level.
Last year, after the last NEC meeting with Gauteng ANC leadership, chairperson Gwede Mantashe stated that the ANC in Gauteng and KZN needed to be rebuilt from scratch by strengthening the party in those provinces.
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Strategic interventions from the NEC are needed to strengthen the ANC in the province for future electoral performance. However, this could be a missed opportunity for the ANC NEC if it doesn’t put strong individuals in place to support the rebuilding process.
Service delivery failures
The ANC’s electoral decline in Gauteng cannot be attributed simply to the party’s national government performance. Voters in Gauteng cast their ballots based on tangible outcomes in service delivery, particularly at the local government level.
This makes the province’s electoral dynamics distinct from a broader assessment of the ANC’s national administration, with exceptions such as Eskom’s performance, policing and rail transport.
Consider the comparison often drawn between the provincial governments of Western Cape and Gauteng. In Western Cape, a proactive approach to load shedding saw the provincial government partnering with businesses to add 835MW of solar PV, effectively reducing power cuts.
Gauteng, by contrast, displayed inertia, mirroring a lack of innovation in its ANC leadership. This contrast underscores that governance successes in Western Cape cannot simply be extrapolated to Gauteng.
The Gauteng ANC leadership’s shortcomings point to a deeper issue: a failure to recognise the state as the strategic centre of transformation. The state is not merely a vehicle for implementing party policies but a mechanism for leveraging taxpayer resources to improve living conditions and drive the ideals of the national democratic revolution.
By straying from this purpose, the ANC in Gauteng has jeopardised not just provincial governance but the party’s overall standing ahead of the next general election.
Reinvigorating the ANC in Gauteng will require more than structural adjustments. As South Africa’s economic powerhouse and the largest contributor to GDP by 33.2% in 2023, Gauteng demands leadership that is both competitive and visionary. The inability to secure competent cadres risks eroding the party’s hold on power, with far-reaching implications for the ANC’s broader mission to foster a prosperous and inclusive society.
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A benchmarking study of the ANC Gauteng’s political and state infrastructure is imperative, particularly examining the party’s pre-electoral decline from 50.1% in 2019 to 36.4% in the May 2024 general elections.
The narrow 50.1% victory in 2019 came amid significant challenges: widespread inequality, entrenched poverty, high crime rates and rising unemployment. However, over the subsequent years, the ANC in Gauteng failed to effectively address these systemic issues. Infrastructure development stagnated, with 45 capital projects remaining incomplete.
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s 2021 study laid bare the dissatisfaction of residents with service delivery. This dissatisfaction persisted into 2024, as evidenced by further data from the Observatory showing growing frustration among citizens.
The ANC leadership in Gauteng failed to respond to the urgency of the findings, neglecting to reframe their service delivery strategy or take corrective action.
Read more: More than half of Gauteng people say South Africa is a failed state: survey
Lack of vision and capacity
Theoretically, Weberian principles emphasise the importance of a robust, hierarchical bureaucracy led by technically skilled officials to meet the needs of the populace. However, Gauteng’s ANC leadership has been unable to cultivate a civil service capable of delivering on its mandates. This failure underscores a lack of both vision and operational capacity, further alienating the electorate and deepening the crisis within the province.
Addressing these shortcomings requires not only competent leadership but also a recalibration of the ANC’s approach to governance in Gauteng. The province’s future – and the party’s broader fortunes – hinge on this transformation.
Moreover, the ANC Gauteng has been notably discreet in its manoeuvres during the formation of the provincial government. Negotiations with the Democratic Alliance (DA) reached an impasse, particularly over the allocation of key portfolios in health, infrastructure and finance, leading to a breakdown in talks over a potential Government of Provincial Unity.
Instead, the ANC Gauteng opted to form alliances with smaller political parties, tacitly supported by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
EFF leader Julius Malema publicly endorsed the ANC Gauteng leadership, arguing that the province could govern effectively without the DA. However, this alignment reveals two significant fractures.
First, the ANC Gauteng has deviated from the national leadership’s apparent willingness to collaborate with the DA – an approach often justified on grounds of racial inclusivity. Second, this divergence underscores a growing disunity between the ANC’s national and provincial leadership, eroding the coherence necessary to project a unified governance model.
Read more: The smouldering contestations around the ANC’s provinces as 2026 elections loom
The ANC Gauteng’s posturing as a progressive black ANC is very dangerous as it shows that the ANC has not resolved the structural issue of race for the past 30 years, which means that the national question still needs to be broadened to fit in the context of the 21st century.
In relation to the national question, another key factor was raised recently by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, which argued that South Africa is still trapped by racial disparities, which need not only racial reconciliation but also the equitable distribution of resources, fostering socio-economic development and ensuring inclusive governance.
It is a balancing act between addressing historical injustices and navigating the practicalities of coalition politics in a diverse society.
These dynamics amplify calls for the ANC’s NEC to intervene, potentially disbanding the ANC Gauteng’s leadership to consolidate authority and bolster the party’s standing in the province, in preparation for the 2026 local government elections and 2029 national general elections. DM