Rise Mzansi national chair Vuyiswa Ramokgopa, a leading business person and founding member of the political start-up, is set to be unveiled as the party’s Gauteng premier candidate at Joubert Park in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Gauteng, which contributes about 40% to national GDP, is besieged by high unemployment, poor service delivery, water and energy shortages, violent crime and crumbling infrastructure. It is set to be a battleground province in the 2024 national and provincial elections as opposition parties seek to wrest power from the governing ANC.
Ramokgopa, the former CEO of the SA Institute of Black Property Practitioners, is expected to slug it out with ANC Gauteng chair and current premier Panyaza Lesufi, DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga and EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi to become Gauteng’s number one citizen.
Ndlozi was endorsed by EFF Gauteng chair and Ekurhuleni finance political head Nkululeko Dunga in October 2023 after party leader Julius Malema touted Ndlozi as a suitable candidate to take Lesufi head on.
The ANC has acknowledged it is in danger of losing control of Gauteng as it struggles to deal with high unemployment and deteriorating basic services such as housing, clinics, schools, water and electricity.
The ANC lost control of the Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane metros in Gauteng to DA-led coalitions in the 2021 municipal elections, and its national electoral support fell below the 50% mark for the first time since 1994. The ANC’s support in the province had been on the decline before that, too. In the 2019 provincial election it received 2.1-million votes, or 50.1%, down from the 53.5% it mustered in 2014.
Ramokgopa, who holds a BCom degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Cape Town and chairs the National Property Practitioners Council, said she is ready to take the fight to her political opponents in the race to become Gauteng’s new premier.
Her opponents (Lesufi, Msimanga and Ndlozi) have not demonstrated to the public they have new solutions or ideas to solve the many “complex challenges we have in the country”.
“I have built numerous organisations, I’m the founding member of this one [Rise Mzansi]. I have the requisite technical expertise,” said Ramokgopa, who in 2018 founded Women on the Rise, an association aimed at increasing the voice of women in policy decision-making.
She served as a member of the Black Business Council’s national council and was a member of the Brics Women’s Business Alliance executive committee. She was a finalist in the 2018 CNBC Africa All Africa Business Leaders Awards and in 2019 was a finalist in the Standard Bank Top Women in Business.
Ramokgopa said Gauteng’s socioeconomic challenges have happened under the “watchful eye of the three parties [ANC, DA and EFF] who have been in government in the province. The people are calling for much-needed change. We need leadership who possess technical expertise, requisite skills and integrity, and ideas to solve these complex problems.
“For instance, regarding crime and criminal activity in Gauteng — we are besieged by it — the three parties have been unable to solve it. We need an innovative, targeted approach in solving these challenges.
“We believe the people who have been running Gauteng have run it into the ground. This is not just any other place, it’s the place of opportunity, but it turned into a living hell for most of us. We need leaders, we believe Rise Mzansi can usher in a new leadership.”
She took issue with high unemployment and low economic growth. “We need to resolve that. Gauteng is the economic capital, we can’t afford to hand it over to people who have demonstrated they do not have the capacity to lead.”
The Rise Mzansi chair has not doubt that “Gauteng will be governed by a coalition government” after the elections. Rise Mzansi will play a meaningful role in the coalition, and is well positioned for the premiership, she said.
“Gauteng is a highly contested province, but it’s also a province where the challenges experienced in SA are felt very acutely. The challenges of poor spatial planning, the water crisis, are felt here in a very acute manner because this is a very populous province,” said Ramokgopa.
“The people of Gauteng are impatient for change. The running of the Gauteng metros [has] demonstrated the ANC has lost its grip on governance. The [2024 election] will be a final nail in the coffin.”
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