The ANC needs to refrain from using underhanded tactics to destabilise the newly formed administration of the City of Johannesburg and, instead, devote its energies to putting its house in order before trying to contest any form of power.
The ANC, as an organisation, needs to spring clean itself and get rid of people or leaders who are liabilities to the movement as the first step in addressing the apathy that was exhibited at the polls. The party needs to pay undivided attention to fixing the soaring levels of acrimony within its own ranks, which are now spilling over into government.
As far as I am concerned, the DA did not win the election because more people voted for it, but because frustrated ANC voting loyalists decided to abstain from voting because of the in-house problems. If you analyse the numbers in all the past elections, yes the DA might have grown and some of the ANC people ‘stolen’ by the newly formed EFF of Julius Malema, but the number of voters declined compared to previous elections.
We all know that there were many problems in the party regarding its tendency to impose candidates on communities instead of listening to the voice of reason from the people that matter – the voters. Chief culprit of this arrogance of power is none other than the secretary general himself – Gwede Mantashe. Mantashe seems to think he is the only person that is gifted with the power of intellect and the art of reasoning. He seems to think that all other people are nothing but imbeciles who suffer the most severe of thinking incapacitation. He thinks he is Mr Know-It-All.
If the ANC can get rid of all the dead wood within its ranks – and all the looters – and promise to start a clean slate and lead a clean government that does not tolerate corruption, I can tell you, our people are ready and waiting to forgive and forget and will readily embrace the party once more.
The ANC can easily make a comeback to power in the municipalities that it lost if it has the will and desire to accept its shortcomings, act decisively on its corrupt officials to stop the looting of State resources and accept the idea of a fresh start as proposed by Sipho Pityana and others.
What the ANC needs to do is overhaul itself and allow new, untainted blood to be elected to lead the organisation; and those elections should be the most credible and transparent of all the elections it has ever held if it is to rid itself of the mushrooming factions within its ranks.
But until all that is done, and the tearing at each other stops, including the name calling by the supreme leader of the organisation in the name of the SG, the ANC will fizzle into thin air faster than some people might think. The national elections are only two years away and people want to see a rejuvenated ANC.
