Ramaphosa blows ANC trumpet even in face of dwindling support

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President Cyril Ramaphosa borrowed from the 1955 Freedom Charter on Monday, declaring during a post-elections thanksgiving event that “no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people”.

He was speaking at a party event at the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg.h

Over the weekend the ANC leadership retreated into a strategy session to reflect on the scolding that the electorate reserved for the party during last Monday’s polls.

The ANC national executive committee (NEC) was also due to plot its response to the looming coalition talks where it would compete and cooperate with opposition parties for space to govern. The party’s performance was the worst in the party’s history and marked its first drop below 50% support since 1994.

Ramaphosa’s retreat to 1955 moment was a glimpse into the ANC’s headspace going into the much-awaited talks on coalition governments in municipalities where no party secured an outright majority during last week’s local government polls.

His overall demeanour was that of a general marshalling his troops for any possible outcome, as the ANC would step in with a weaker foot in bargaining talks for power sharing in municipalities where no party secured an outright majority.

The ANC not defeated

He declared that the ANC would not approach any potential coalition partners holding a begging bowl:We are not on our knees.

“I don’t want any one of us to go with our heads hung down, feeling that we are defeated. No way. We are the ANC,” Ramaphosa said.

Some of the more boisterous opposition parties have declared the door shut on working with the ANC. It may be gamesmanship, but Ramaphosa said the ANC was unshaken:I have been hearing parties saying they will not go into coalition with the ANC and that made me wonder, who said the ANC wants to get into partnerships with them?

Where the opposition would not be prepared to compromise, Ramaphosa saw the possibility of elections being rerun:Legislation will kick in if there is a failure to formulate councils and a rerun of elections in those hung municipalities could be forced.

Ramaphosa noted that power-sharing deals could be complex and the temptation to settle for less would be irritable in places where the ANC had never been in opposition. “We will be clear that we do not want casual agreements.’’

He also sought to shore up the party’s health status, saying it was not all doom and gloom as predicted by opponents. He said some of the party’s political opponents were talking about the perilous state of the party, but the ANC was resilient.

“They don’t know us too well. We will not turn away from implementing the will of the people. Our people have spoken,’’ he said.

Hype-man Mbalula under scrutiny

In a similar war cry to Ramaphosa, ANC head of elections Fikile Mbalula took to social media yesterday to declare the ANC’s continued dominance in voter support even when it took a knock. “We have received more than 10.6 million votes. We have more than 4 500 local government seats and an outright majority in 167 councils. That is not chicken feed.”

He said the ANC remained the largest party in every metro except Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Mbalula had to hype up his performance as the lead strategist in the ANC’s elections war room. His performance would also have come under scrutiny during the weekend’s crisis meeting, with some in the NEC suggesting that perhaps he was best suited for the filling up stadium, but not to be given the role to explain the ANC’s policy positions and service delivery record.

His desperate attempt to deny that Ramaphosa in 2019 promised the people of Alexandra one million houses would go down as one of his lowlights.

Bravado over humility

It was clear that the ANC head honchos emerged from the weekend meeting convinced that a lot of bravado would do the trick and a possible election rerun could change the party’s fortunes.

The ANC may have looked at its recent track record in by-elections for motivation. The low turnout in the by-elections seems to have increasingly favoured the ANC. Smaller parties that eat into the cake during the much bigger municipal and general elections usually disappear during by-elections.

From that point of view, it would make sense why the party comes out of its get-together with a determination to keep its ground troops mobilised for any possibility. At a time when the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) is encouraging political parties to take down posters and the electorate is looking for certainty on the best possible governing arrangements, the ANC is prepared to take it all the way to the wire. Interesting move indeed.

Critics may point out that the party may be better served if it accepted its new opposition status with humility and played a constructive role to ensure that stability is achieved in hung municipalities at the earliest time possible.

–-City Press