Draining the fiscus to rescue a tarnished legacy

Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu

In the culture of the ANC, those who serve in the provincial legislatures and the National Assembly are expected to visit their constituency offices whenever parliament is in recess. This is done to achieve a dual aim. Firstly, it allows them to report to their constituencies on what they had been mandated to do. They highlight their achievements and identify some glitches. Ideally, they should also seek advice on how those hurdles could be overcome if they cannot do so on their own.

Secondly, constituency meetings allow elected representatives to solicit views on a wide range of issues and to receive a fresh mandate from their constituencies to take to the different parliaments when the latter resume their work.

This is an old practice that has kept the ANC in power and allowed it to attract new members. That is how the ANC has grown over the years and has remained in power since 1994 until the sixth administration, which ended in May 2024.

Sadly, this culture has faded away over the years. Instead, it has been replaced by notorious and destructive factional politics. Deployed members of the ANC no longer serve their constituencies as has been the case before, but they serve the factions they belong to and their ‘handlers’ who control the purse and thus call the tune. In the process, the organisation has been significantly weakened as evidenced in recent successive elections.

Against this background, as a norm, the incumbent president of the ANC usually holds izimbizo with various communities – not only members of the party. This is so because the president leads all South Africans, not just ANC members. At least this is the ideal situation. Whether it happens remains the subject of debate.

As the ANC has constantly gone down in each election since 2019, the future of this once mighty organisation hangs in the balance. In 2019 the ANC went below 60 percent for the very first time since 1994 – only managing 57.50 percent. As the party was recovering from this shock, the 2021 Local Government Election (LGE) saw the ANC continuing to perform badly. 

As if that was not enough, in the 2024 general election the ANC made history (albeit in a negative way) when for the first time it went below 50 percent, only managing a mere 40.18 percent. Some opposition political parties even questioned this figure arguing that it was only made possible by the mysterious system ‘collapse’ during the counting of the votes.

In the aftermath of this constant decline of the ANC under President Ramaphosa’s leadership questions are beginning to arise. Among them are the following: Is the problem with him as a person or his leadership style? Was Ramaphosa the right person for the job? Did he ascend to the presidency at the wrong time? Did he over-sell himself when he complained about the so-called nine wasted years under President Zuma whom he deputized both in the ANC and in parliament? 

Is nature punishing him for making a false promise about the so-called “New Dawn” that he was bringing with him when he assumed office on 15 February 2018 to finish Zuma’s term or when he ascended to the presidency after the 2019 general election? Importantly, has the ANC as a political party run out of fame and is thus joining other former liberation movements which relinquished power after losing popularity with the masses?

These are some of the many questions which beg for answers. They are invoked by Ramaphosa’s current ongoing provincial imbizos. It remains unclear as to what has prompted him to convene these imbizos. For example, is he upholding the ANC’s culture of touching base with the masses as outlined above? If so, where has he been all along when the masses felt alienated by the organisation they loved so much? Has he been woken up by the party’s disappointing performance in the recent elections? If so, is his action honest?

Is Ramaphosa genuine in convening these provincial imbizos as part of his fact-finding mission so that he can reignite the spark in the fading ANC and reposition it? If that is the case, why did he wait for so long as the party was going down under his leadership?

Given the cloud hanging over his head following the Marikana incident and the Phala Phala saga, is Ramaphosa using these imbizos to save his political image so that he can leave a better legacy when he leaves the ANC leadership in 2027? If so, were there no other means to revamp himself without using ANC structures and his current position as President of the ANC and the country? Would this not amount to abuse of office?

Given the financial position of the ANC where it recently struggled to pay its employees at different levels, and faced litigation, would the money used to convene these izimbizo not be put to better use? Should the money not be used to resuscitate branches and regions and educate the ANC membership about the decision not to vote in an election and to guard against factional politics? This question is given impetus by the results of the 2024 general election and the fact that the LGE will be held in 2026. Is the ANC ready to face this election and do better than it did in 2021? What has the party done to date to avert the 2021 bad performance?

Most importantly, has this strategy of convening imbizos not been overtaken by events? In other words, is this not too little too late? If this is the case, is the convening of these imbizos warranted and justifiable? Has Ramaphosa and his advisors read the political mood in the ANC and the country well and arrived at realistic conclusions or have they missed the point?

These questions demand honest answers from Ramaphosa, the ANC and government.

* Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu is Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy at Nelson Mandela University.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.