Following the colossal blunder by himself and his team, one would’ve expected Fikile Mbalula to be immediately placed on special leave instead of sitting pretty at Luthuli House. But if the video clips are anything to go by, Mbaks is still the swaggering Comrade SG – bouncy gait, megalonous voice, an inscouciant swell, almost as though he knows something the rest of us do not. Nothing about his air suggests that this is the man who will surely go down as the culprit behind one of the ANC’s most ridiculous cock-ups: that of ensuring 181 ANC councillors might not be appearing on the 8 November local government ballot. Even to a man who is hardly a stranger to scandal, this one tops the cake, especially when the pundits have long written the party’s obituary.
Across six municipalities such as Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality which includes Bloemfontein – the ANC’s place of birth and one of the most strategic constituencies in the country – the party will either be partially or completely shut out from competing in the upcoming poll. Some of these are historical strongholds of the party and the ANC has effectively peeved off a horde of would-be councillors, leaving them out in the cold until five years from now, or – if current trends persist – permanently.
All because the party failed to click on the ‘Submit as Final’ icon before the 5pm deadline of 28 August. The ANC has fired people for far less. Emergency NEC meetings have been called for smaller infractions. But they clearly have no gumption to so much as make it seem to have run Razzmatazz through some form of disciplinary process. Instead, the ANC has put on a united front – at first opting to appeal the IEC’s decision, a move which the Electoral Court (EC) has since dismissed.
This has led them to escalate the matter to the Constitutional Court in the hope of avoiding the embarrassment of a significantly wounded party limping into what is set to be one of the most highly contested LGE’s in recent times. On the face of it, the party seeks to challenge the EC but if one looks a bit closer this seems like a desperate cover-up to shift blame from the ANC’s own internal troubles. The party had repeatedly failed to announce mayoral candidates for the metros and other cities.
No doubt what the Constitutional Court decides will have far-reaching consequences, for the country, but most importantly for the ANC. The rumour mill – buoyed up by consecutive polls, surveys and political analysts – has increasingly maintained that the ANC will suffer the 30-year curse that has affected all liberation movements on the continent. That – as has happened throughout Africa – the once-ruling party, forced into a power sharing arrangement post-2024 will only continue to bleed further support as early as 2029 and be reduced to a complete non-starter by 2034.
The writing has been on the wall for some time shown by dipping numbers, but one could never tell if these – on their own – could be a reliable yardstick to measure the party’s future prospects. That is until no amount of PR clean-up or bureaucratic spin could actually hide the growing frustration and dwindling support. On 1 May, at a Worker’s Day rally in Bloemfontein this year we reported how ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa effectively stood up to address empty stands. These are usually spectacles to showcase real, unfiltered grassroots party support. Real people, real numbers, none of the speculation and predictions of polls or surveys. Indeed, in its glory days the ANC did not miss the opportunity to ask the media cameramen to pan out to the surrounding crowds so that they could say, ‘what do you mean the ANC is dying, just look at all these people.’
But when the predictions of declining party support started to find expression in the imbizos, rallies and such other real-life gatherings, it started to become increasingly difficult to back up claims of the ANC’s indestructability, let alone sustain the assurity of the party remaining in power ‘until Jesus comes back.’ In fact, looking at the party’s January 8 celebrations in the North West Province earlier this year, there may have been those who would’ve sarcastistically quipped that the Son of Man had indeed kicked off his second coming not in Jerusalem but in a place called Moruleng. The support was negligible, the party faithful not too enthusiastic to publish the humiliation on the socials and the impeding disaster was clear to the more pragmatic cadres who warned that the worst was yet to come.
But these unfamiliar trends had started a decade earlier, at a time when this publication didn’t even exist to write about it. In 2016, at the launch of its local government election manifesto in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), an established stronghold, the party could not even fill up the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, something that had been totally inconceivable until then. Despite the spin doctors trying to downplay the poor turnout, in that election, the party would go on to lose big cities in Gauteng and the Nelson Mandela Bay area as well, making it clear that there was a likely correlation between the empty pre-election stands and the declining Xs on the ballot paper.
Mbalula’s attempts at damage control with the apex court are an indicator of the wheels long began to fall off, leaving the bigwigs in a state of headlong panic. The factionalism has broken down party-centred communication and decisions are decided along personal preferences that will foster branch support for individuals and slates (camps). The ANC as an idea and as an entity that will oversee the mass democratic project as well as usher in the utopia of economic equality has been hijacked by a political mafia class that is fielding sycophants and puppets to key state institutions, a beaurocratic elite that is fighting tooth and nail to remain near the levers of power in light of the decreasing seats and positions.
Such is the contentious environment that people like Mbalula have to juggle. On the one hand having to ensure that his people are favoured, on the other trying to keep up appearances as the walls crumble all around him and ensuring that he himself has a strong enough footing to remain on the carriage when the wheels have given in completely. With such pressure bearing down, one might understand why a simple click on ‘submit’ might prove difficult.
Featured image: ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula addressing a church gathering in Limpopo. Source: MyANC Facebook page.