A VIEW OF THE WEEK: Ghosts of ANC’s past crash its January 8 celebrations

Nothing ruins a celebration more than an ex showing up.

It casts a shadow from the cloud of secrets hanging overhead, and no one is sure how they will act.

This is how the ANC will have felt about the week they celebrated their 113th birthday.

Instead of a festival of celebratory activities, the week has been a nightmare filled with squabbles and grim reminders of their past.

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The ghost of an angry partner

The first ghost of its past (and potential future) came when its leaders joined Tripartite Alliance partner, the South African Communists Party (SACP), to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of stalwart Joe Slovo’s death.

There, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa got another reminder of the anger the SACP held towards it for including the DA in the government of national unity (GNU) and heard SACP general-secretary Solly Mapaila announce that his party would go it alone in the 2026 local government elections.

It is a show of force from the ambitious Mapaila, who must feel betrayed at being relegated to the back benches while the ANC gives its right-hand seat to its political rivals. And while Ramaphosa has made the feeding trough bigger with his bloated cabinet, there is now even less space for the parties it has ruled with for 30 years.

While Mapaila will want to show that the SACP has enough support to be as strategically important to the ANC as other members of the GNU, this is not likely to happen.

Instead, the SACP will find, like many splinter groups before it, that it is only fishing from the same pool as the ANC. In doing so, it is making itself and the ANC weaker, and possibly killing its chances of any future cabinet positions by association, like it currently has.

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The ghost of broken promises

Ramaphosa preached a message of peace and tolerance to SACP members, but the bodyguards of his deputy Paul Mashatile had neither when they kicked a Khayelitsha resident out of his own house.

Mashatile was in the province for activities ahead of the January 8 birthday message on Saturday and was visiting homes on the campaign trail. While he was in the lounge of one resident, an alleged family member came in, saw the deputy president and his entourage, and ordered them out of his house. A minor scuffle ensued.

While anyone would get a shock to find a politician on their couch, the reaction points to a more general mistrust of those in power born from a chronic lack of accountability and service delivery.

Instead of working to fix the issues in the community, one of the most influential men in the country is posing for the camera.

It is always commendable when politicians listen to the people directly, but for many who have spent years shouting for change, it is too late. And what happens when the cameras are gone? Will the tea party with Mashatile have made anyone’s life better?

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Ghost of a bitter breakup

Even on the day of its anniversary, when it should be waxing lyrical about its past and successes, the ANC was distracted by squabbles with its former leader Jacob Zuma.

Expelled Zuma, likely purposely, chose the historic day to inform the party that he wanted his membership back. He claimed his axing from the party was “unlawful”.

The ANC member who defended Zuma during his disciplinary, Tony Yengeni, is also now facing charges for criticising Ramaphosa.

It is the latest step in the ANC’s path toward unity and acting against that sowing division. It is one that a party is well within its right to do but must be handled carefully. The ANC now has more splinters than a worn-out plank, and any further public squabbles will cast it as a party too preoccupied with internal wars to wage any battle against poverty, inequality and social ills.

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Is it worth staying?

There have been other grim reminders of the ANC’s failures, including to address crime in the areas it visited this week and the collapse of infrastructure in other provinces it once governed.

It didn’t need these ghosts of its pasts to remind South Africa of its problems but it will certainly not help Ramaphosa on Saturday when he tries to convince his party members, and the nation, that we should stay with the ANC in the future.

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