ANC electoral chairperson Mdumiseni Ntuli said the party had taken its historic support in Mpumalanga for granted. (Darren Stewart/Gallo Images)
- ANC elections chief Mdumiseni Ntuli told News24 the party had taken its historic support in Mpumalanga for granted.
- By Friday night, the ANC still held a majority in Mpumalanga with 50.81% of the vote.
- At the time, the Umkhonto weSizwe party was the official opposition party in the province.
- To keep track of the latest results, Election Map.
While the ANC poured its energy and resources into KwaZulu-Natal, it underestimated the Umkhonto we'Sizwe Party (MKP), led by Jacob Zuma, which was active in the neighbouring province of Mpumalanga.
Speaking to News24 as she looked at the leaderboard at the Electoral Commission of South Africa's (IEC) results operations centre in Midrand, ANC electoral committee chair Mdumiseni Ntuli said the party had taken for granted the support it had historically enjoyed in the industrial region.
On Friday night, with 81.5% of the total votes counted, the ANC appeared to have maintained control of Mpumalanga province.
Final projections suggest the ANC is likely to end up with 52% of support in the province, a significant 17% drop for a party that received 72.23% support in 2019.
Rolling Coverage | Final projections show the ANC maintaining control in the North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State.
By Friday night, election results showed the MK party had won 17.97% of the vote, making it the official opposition party in Mpumalanga province.
But that growth didn't happen suddenly.
The party held its first major rally in Mkondo after former president Jacob Zuma announced he would run for office with the MKP in December.
At the rally, Zuma gave his supporters marching orders, explaining that the party's structure and leadership would be chosen after it “won the elections”.
The rally was organised and funded by Vusi Mosa, a disgruntled former ANC member and former Mkondo municipality mayor, who spent R400,000 to organise the party's first rally.
READ | MK member and donor says he pumped R400,000 into Mpumalanga event
Since then, the party has grown significantly in the state, and its popularity is reflected in actual voter turnout.
The situation is even worse in KwaZulu-Natal, where the ANC could find itself in an unfamiliar role as the official opposition.
Ntuli said the situation “would have been much worse” if the party had not campaigned aggressively.
“What we may have underestimated is how low-key Zuma's party would operate without the techniques we're used to in the ANC. We may have also underestimated how well the public would react to their emergence.”
These factors, combined with dissatisfaction with the state of governance, unemployment, poverty and power outages, have undoubtedly had a negative impact on the ANC, he said.
“We underestimated [the MKP] In KwaZulu-Natal, there were certainly challenges, but we thought we could do well, just like in Mpumalanga when MK came into Mpumalanga from the south, which is close to KwaZulu-Natal.”
Ntuli added:
Again, we took for granted that Mpumalanga has historically been an ANC stronghold and has a lot of support, and we never imagined we would find ourselves in a situation where we were struggling between 50% and 51%.
Ntuli said he was confident the ANC would still form government in Mpumalanga with a majority.
Political analyst Mpumelelo Mkhabela told News24 the ANC's gains in Mpumalanga meant the party had fewer provinces to rely on as “strongholds”.
“The most important factor we have to take into account in Mpumalanga is that for a long time, Mpumalanga was considered the safest province for the ANC, along with the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. [solid]” Mkhabela said, adding that 65% support is considered the minimum requirement in these states.
He added:
And now, for the first time, we see that Mpumalanga is no longer a safe place for the ANC to win such a majority, which is shocking at this stage but especially if the results stand as they are.
Mkondo, located on the border between Eswatini and KwaZulu-Natal, is a town with dusty, potholed roads and frequent water outages.
Mkhabela explained that much of MK's support came from KwaZulu-Natal, where the party has a huge following.
He added that the ANC in the Gert Sibande area had begun to show signs of weakness following the 2021 local government elections.
“That's where the EFF has made great strides in this region. Already there were indications that people were prepared to change their vote if they were unhappy with the ANC,” he said.
“That's an area where the EFF was doing well – until MK came along and ate the lunch that the EFF was trying to make. So that was one of the first places the MK party went after it was launched.
“Additionally, there have been incidents where the MK party has recruited several disgruntled former ANC leaders.”