Getting rid of the ANC is a herculean task

Just as the mythological monster Hydra sprouted new heads whenever one was cut off, the ANC has multiple tricks.

While Hydra had “poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly”, the ANC is fuelled by toxic national democratic revolution (NDR) hot air.

The ANC is not dead. In Johannesburg it has more councillors than any other party.

In a new ANC document, From Regression to Resurgence: Preliminary Notes on the 2021 Local Government Elections, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says the party won “on average 68% of the wards in the respective metros”.

He says the ANC nationally, “has the most votes of any party, has outright control of 166 out of 257 municipalities, it is still in control of eight of the nine provincial governments”.

Thwarted during mayoral elections, the ANC has lost control of Gauteng’s metros, Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, which are “at the centre of the transformation project”.

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These metros are crucial to the party’s NDR ambitions.

According to Ramokgopa, “a significant part of the prosecution of the NDR will be pivoted” in the metros. The Gauteng metros make up 21% of SA’s population and 32% of GDP.

The combined annual budgets amount to R163 billion. The ANC wants to use public money from these metros to advance its grand plans.

Failure to secure the metros is “a significant setback to the transformation project. The … ANC has severely diminished ability to influence the exploitation of the municipal budgets for the furtherance of the objects of the NDR”.

What some see as fraud and corruption is dressed up here in revolutionary ideals. The longer the ANC is kept away from metro budgets, the less patronage it will be able to dish out. Without access to public money, corrupt networks shrivel.

That is why the ANC must be kept out. Yet, it still controls the national budget and most provincial budgets, which are sources of significant income for metros.

The party intends to use this leverage: “The exploitation of the district development model and/or the provincial governments’ leadership will be key in asserting the ANC leadership agenda”.

At council level, the ANC will continue to snipe to undermine the metros, but this hydra-like monster will also use other methods to survive.

Analyst Richard Humphries predicts we should expect a “focus on the implementation of the district development model” working “closely with the infrastructure unit, headed by … Ramokgopa, and the Operation Vulindlela team, straddling the presidency and Treasury”.

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He says these presidential line-of-sight units tend to be based in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s (expanding) office. All lined up to boost the ANC.

While Ramaphosa musters state resources to rescue the ANC, his radical economic transformation ANC rivals in KwaZulu-Natal secured eThekwini, keeping out a DA voting bloc.

Another Hydra-like ANC variation to grapple with.

Mythical Hercules had assistance. His nephew Iolaus helped cut off all Hydra’s heads.

Similarly, the DA alone cannot finish off the ANC. Help is required, inside or outside coalitions.