ANC gets its election drive off the ground

The ANC’s election campaign finally got out of the starting blocks on Thursday, a week after opposition parties launched their battle plans for the local government elections as a cash crunch and the disputes over candidate lists sidetracked the governing party.

Its chances of reversing setbacks in the 2016 local polls, when it lost control of key metros such as Nelson Mandela Bay and the City of Johannesburg, were almost dealt a fatal blow when it missed a deadline to field candidates in dozens of constituencies.

Having first tried to blame that on technical problems at the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), before owning up to its own organisational chaos, it was given a lifeline when the IEC decided earlier in September to reopen the process to register candidates for an election that was already set to be the toughest for the ANC since it won power nationally in 1994.

“We have always had difficulties,” ANC head of elections Fikile Mbalula said at a briefing on Thursday as the party insisted it had resolved a series of crises

it faced in recent weeks. “The little that we have will deliver victory for the ANC,” he said, alluding to the party’s wellpublicised financial problems.

Staff members at its Luthuli House headquarters in Johannesburg have endured irregular payments of salaries for some years, and the list nomination process of the ANC has been fraught with challenges, including threats of court action, protests and violence at branches. That was one of the factors behind its failure to submit candidates in 93 municipalities in time for the IEC’s initial deadline of August 23.

The party said the matter of candidate registration will be finalised at a special national executive committee meeting at the weekend ahead of the IEC’s new deadline next week.

Mbalula said it was likely that some of the disputes would be resolved only after the elections, scheduled for November 1.

The ANC electoral committee, chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, will deal with disputes lodged against the provincial list committee’s decisions to either retain or withdraw candidate lists.

“In some instances there are serious allegations of transgressions, including the manipulation of candidate lists.” Mbalula said at a briefing on Thursday.

The ANC will launch its manifesto on September 27 in Tshwane. It will be a subdued affair compared with previous years, with only 500 able to attend in person, in accordance with Covid-19 restrictions.

In an election that will be a test of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pitch that he is cleansing the party after what he has described as “wasted years” under his predecessor, recent polling suggests the ANC will struggle. Its reputation has been further tarnished by more recent scandals, while the government’s Covid-19 response contributed to the deepest economic slump in a century and the loss of more than 1-million jobs.

An Ipsos poll last week showed declining support for the ANC, putting it at 49% nationally, down from the 57.5% it won in the 2019 general election. The DA failed to capitalise and is down 3 percentage points to 18%, the polling indicates. The EFF posted significant growth at 15%, up from 11%.

Mbalula said though the party will not be campaigning to enter into coalitions, it is not opposed to entering into them if the need arises. “There is no principled position that we wouldn’t work with this one … there are no holy cows.”