ANC must prepare itself for a big battle ahead of polls

Amid the unresolved matter of quarantined Ekurhuleni votes, with Gauteng ANC chair Panyaza Lesufi over the weekend warning delegates attending the final lap of the party’s 14th provincial conference of “battles ahead of the 2024 polls”, the gathering voted in members of the powerful provincial executive committee.

But two leading political analysts were yesterday both expecting the ANC to have losses in the next election, taking into account the outcome of the 2021 local government polls, in which the party lost three metros to a coalition of opposition parties.

Despite the strategy and tactics and renewal discussion documents having been debated by delegates at the gathering, independent political analyst Dr Ralph Mathekga said the ANC had “no chance to renew itself before the eyes of society”.

“The ANC-led government in Gauteng has more basic problems than the idea of renewal, with corruption, collapsing of health and other public services serving as evidence for all to see. Gauteng is the epicentre of political shifts in the country and opposition parties are gunning for the ANC.”

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Professor Siphamandla Zondi, director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at University of Johannesburg, said he hoped the newly-elected provincial leadership would “add a new energy to that same theme”.

“The biggest challenge facing the ANC is the possibility of losing votes – not necessarily votes they don’t have, but those that they have.

“Gauteng has tried to keep unity as its priority, but the ANC remains divided. There is general public disillusionment in how the ANC has responded to socio-economic challenges facing society, with people having given it many chances in previous polls.”

With Lesufi having risen from the role of Gauteng ANC deputy to that of chair, Zondi said “there has not been a drastic change in the election of the top leadership in the province”.

“The outcome of the 2024 polls will tell us whether the leadership consolidation of the past five years will give it the boost it needs.

“I suspect the ANC in Gauteng will have huge difficulty in retaining the support it has, looking at the outcome of the local government elections of 2021. It has been declining slowly over time, with no indication the decline will be arrested.”

Lesufi told delegates the party should prepare for “battles lying ahead”.