Years of poor governance and corruption have left voters increasingly unwilling to give the governing party another chance.
One of the biggest problems facing South Africa is that our leaders – our politicians and those who run our cities and towns – seem unable to plan ahead, or to learn lessons to be applied in a future scenario.
That’s why it’s no surprise to see the ANC leadership sitting like the proverbial rabbits in the headlights, while history threatens to smash them into oblivion.
One would have thought that the shock of the 2024 national elections – when the party got only 40% of the vote and was forced into the humiliation of taking other political partners on board in a government of national unity – would have set alarm bells ringing.
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In the wake of that reversal, there was certainly the appearance of introspection and pledges from sundry comrades that the ANC would “self-correct”.
But here we are now… as the party has lost a further 10 percentage points.
Political experts have been tracing the downward trajectory of the party which once was the overwhelming choice of South Africans.
And, those experts believe that when the 2029 election rolls around, the ANC will have fallen as low as third on the list of biggest parties – overtaken by both the DA and Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party.
And, while we know there is not a particularly friendly history between President Cyril Ramaphosa and former president Thabo Mbeki, Mbeki’s observation that Ramaphosa would have been right in offering his resignation after this dismal poll performance, is spot-on.
A former ANC spin doctor, Chris Vick, put a large part of the blame on poor communication and marketing by the former sole ruling party.
To that we would say: there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.
The incompetence and looting of the ANC is writ large.
People see that and they want a change.
