ANC leaders on Wednesday put on a brave face after the significant losses the party incurred during the local government elections.
At a media briefing on Wednesday, they said the party was not in decline and planned to enter local government coalition talks from a position of strength.
This, despite the fact that the ruling party garnered under 50% support in the polls overall while competitors and new entrants had gained ground.
With almost all the country’s local government election results in by Wednesday afternoon, the ANC was sitting at just under 46% support countrywide. In the final 2016 results, the ANC garnered 54% support overall.
For the first time in the party’s history, ANC support in 2021 dropped below the halfway mark in an election. Yet, top brass in the ANC insisted the results were not a sign of the party’s demise.
Deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, treasurer Paul Mashatile and head of elections Fikile Mbalula spoke at the national results centre of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) on Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ve got to learn out of this. We at least managed to salvage something from the low voter turnout,” said Mbalula.
“We went into this campaign knowing very well that the biggest enemy we’re facing is to get our people out to vote. And to us this was a wall-to-wall campaign and a slap election,” he said.
“We ran a splendid campaign to convince our people to come out in their numbers and vote for us. We take what we get. It’s not the decisive majority that we wanted,” he said. “Are we disappointed about that? No. From where we are seated we know the worst could have happened.”
Duarte said the turnout was particularly disappointing. The trio claimed the ANC’s renewal project under President Cyril Ramaphosa was gaining ground with voters.
Duarte conceded results showed the electorate’s displeasure with the ANC. “Low voter turnout, especially in traditional ANC strongholds, communicates a clear message: the people are disappointed in the ANC,” she said.
That the ANC is contemplating pacts with smaller parties and siding with the opposition is telling. On Friday, its extended national working committee (NWC) will discuss what compromises to make with future partners.
“Remember, we are not negotiating here from a position of weakness. I think the numbers speak for themselves. We’re not really negotiating from any position of weakness,” Duarte claimed.
Mashatile said the party was not going to enter into coalitions from a desperate position.
“Those who want to work with us, our doors are open,” he said. While the ANC had not yet decided on its allies, Mashatile said it would approach coalitions with caution. “If we have to be in opposition so be it,” he said.
Political researcher Sam Mkokeli said the numbers were a huge disaster, and it will take something more than a miracle to undo the downward spiral. “What you have is a new dawn narrative that looks like lipstick on a pig.”
Another analyst, Sanusha Naidu, said that based on the 2021 tallies the ANC was surely worried about 2024.
Longtime ANC observer and scholar Susan Booysen agreed that the 2021 election figures were the latest gauge on the ANC’s ongoing failure.
“It is certainly shedding rather than gaining or growing. It is a prolonged, protracted process of the ANC going further and further into decline,” Booysen said.
Elections since 2004 have put the ANC in a continuous state of decline but the party had persisting in strongholds, said Naidu. “Certain provinces, in the Eastern Cape, for example, they are not doing too badly. It is not a complete death knell,” she said of the ANC.
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