ANC’s poor elections not just Mbalula’s fault

Say what you want about Liam Jacobs – the man who left the DA for the PA, before returning a year later – if you want to examine the height of flip-flopping, you need to look at the “movement”. At least, that’s what the ANC loves calling itself when it’s convenient.

The movement finds any occasion to hold itself out at broad association of the people for the people until it doesn’t serve their purposes. Soon, we will see how that pans out because the razzmatazz may be depleted. The movement has many invested people within it and if they can keep their returns coming by simply handing over a fall guy… and it’s easy to guess who the first option will be.

Local election highlighted ANC’s flaws

If Fikile Mbalula were to be punished for the performance of the ANC, it would be incredibly telling of the voters’ message not getting through to them. This wasn’t an election defeat because of the flaws of the election machinery. This was an election loss because of the flaws of the movement itself.

The ANC should have done some reflection when its longtime tripartite alliance partner, the SACP, stood against them. If your alliance partners are getting upset with you, it’s not a big step for some of your voters to do the same.

And the warnings were all over. If not the polls, then the declining support at the national election, protests and disdain across the country for the lack of service delivery.

Real reflection needed

Had the movement had less disingenuous leadership, perhaps more fruitful reflections could have taken place. Thabo Mbeki may have even encouraged an ANC renaissance. Instead, we got hotel showers, potholes caused by climate change and a visibly tired Gwede Mantashe bankrupt of any progressive ideas. The guy invoked the Republican loss to try and explain politics of change and why the ANC has done poorly. I never thought I’d see the day that Mantashe relies on Donald Trump. That’s depressingly desperate.

Over the years, any serious movement would look at those warning signs and address them. There are few political organisations in the world with the good fortune of the ANC; decades of outright majority and on all three levels of government throughout the country. Yet even with that and budgets of free taxpayer money in a political environment where you could do nearly anything you liked and chalk it down to some interpretation of “transformation”, they failed their own people.

And it was never a mistaken failure. It was never a failure of “oh we tried but it didn’t work”. It was a failure of how much do we deserve to take before we consider giving anything to the people – the masses as they’re so fondly referred to. That honesty still hasn’t hit the organisation – but it has hit the voters.

ANC still has some support

Yet, one in every three voters still put their X behind the movement. That’s important because despite all the failure, the ANC still has support it can work with; support any other party would have been envious of five years ago.

If the ANC was serious about governing for the benefit of the people. If the movement is really all it claims to be, there’s still a good chance, but it will require some honesty from the party.

The solution to the ANC problems is not to fire Mbalula or Mantashe but rather for those senior leaders to come forward and admit to the pandemic within the ANC ecosystem – the entitlement and thievery. After that, they need to do something to address it to the extent that the masses see results. Those results are not just people in jail, but also money being spent on them before German car dealerships have another bumper year.

If the ANC still wants to claim that it’s a movement for the masses, it needs to do more for the masses with what it still has.