The ANC, which is rocked by administrative, financial and operational challenges, will hold its January 8 statement in the Mpumalanga capital of Mbombela in 2024, secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said on Wednesday.
He was addressing the media following the party’s three-day national executive committee meeting held at the weekend.
The governing party is set to hold its Mayihlome rally at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban and its Siyanqoba rally at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg in 2024. Dates for those events would be announced after the January 8 statement, Mbalula said.
The Siyanqoba rally is held closer to elections and is akin to the haka associated with New Zealand rugby, as the ANC uses the gathering to display its supposed electoral strength and unity, with the aim of appealing to the psyche of its members and undecided voters.
An annual tradition, the January 8 statement would be closely watched by analysts and opposition parties as it sets the tone on how it plans to achieve its deliverables for the year ahead.
The event is set to take place on the eve of the much-anticipated provincial and national elections in 2024, where the ANC’s electoral support could dip below 50%, according to several polls including one by the ANC itself.
Emboldened by this, opposition party leaders from the DA, IFP, Independent SA National Civic Organisation, FF Plus, ActionSA, United Independent Movement and the Spectrum National Party, held a convention in August, where they agreed on a power-sharing agreement aimed at ousting the ANC from the Union Buildings.
According to the deal, power will be shared in proportion to election results, appointments to government positions will be based on merit, cabinets will reflect the diversity of the country and lifestyle audits of all members of the executive will be implemented.
In September the ANC launched a review of its 2019 election manifesto in Soweto as part of a campaign aimed at clawing itself back from successive electoral losses, promising to use the next nine months before the general election to avert the collapse of state-owned entities, intervene in failing municipalities and reduce rolling blackouts.
The ANC has been in power for almost three decades. However, the former liberation movement has presided over high unemployment, low economic growth, violent crime, systemic corruption, entrenched poverty, deepening inequality, load-shedding, looting of state-owned enterprises and decaying infrastructure.
ANC politicians including Thembi Nkadimeng, Lindiwe Zulu and deputy president Paul Mashatile have blamed apartheid for the socioeconomic crises, including poor service delivery dogging the country.
Combined, these issues have cost the ANC electoral support as the party has been fairing very badly in elections, losing support in areas generally seen as its strongholds. In a number of metros and municipalities, it has been forced to join coalition governments with smaller parties with widely divergent views to it or go into opposition.
In the 2019 election, the ANC received 10-million votes (57.5%), the DA 3.6-million (20.7%) and the EFF 1.8-million (10.8%).
In the 2021 local government elections, the ANC lost control of the Gauteng metros of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane after its electoral support fell below 50% for the first time since 1994.
The party only won two of the eight metros in the country with an outright majority in Mangaung in the Free State and Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape.
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