Mokonyane said persistent challenges, including water shortages and uncollected rubbish, have left some residents disillusioned.
ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane has conceded that poor service delivery in its traditional strongholds is among the factors contributing to low voter turnout in the local government elections.
Mokonyane was addressing the media at the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) results operation centre at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand on Thursday.
Political contest
The local government elections are producing an increasingly competitive political contest, with early results showing opposition parties making gains in several municipalities while the ANC faces challenges in key battlegrounds across the country.
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Mokonyane said persistent challenges, including water shortages and uncollected rubbish, have left some residents disillusioned.
ANC renewal
She said the party’s renewal programme must focus on rebuilding relationships with communities and resolving the issues affecting people’s daily lives.
“When he or she wakes up, a voter looks at issues that affect them. They find themselves in the challenges of looking up, not doing their work. It will end,” she said.
She also pointed to the difficulties experienced by some residents in Soweto and older townships, saying properties had been attached after indigent policies were dropped.
“They’ve also found themselves in a situation where some of their properties, both in Soweto and in the old towns, where, more than the past eight years of DA rule, the indigent policy was dropped, and their properties have been attached,” Mokonyane said.
ANC intervention
She said the ANC had a responsibility to intervene.
“We need, therefore, the human responsibility of the ANC to resolve such issues,” she said.
Mokonyane said the party’s renewal agenda should not be confined to organisational work alone.
“Hence, we are saying, our renewal must go beyond just building ANC branches, but it must be about building relationships, and being seen resolving people’s issues, even where we are not governing,” she said.
