ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula. (OJ Koloti/Galo Images)
TThe ANC believes low voter turnout, the rise of Jacob Zuma's Umkhonto weSizwe party and public dissatisfaction with service delivery contributed to the party losing a majority of seats across the country.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Sunday briefed the media for the first time on the party's performance in the national and provincial elections, saying the party had accepted the will of the voters.
The party lost control in Gauteng and was also heavily defeated in KwaZulu-Natal, where it won 45% of the vote, but also in the Northern Cape, where it fell below 50%, and lost 17 percentage points nationally.
Mbalula said the ANC had accepted defeat and thanked six million people for voting for the party and supporting efforts “to rid the ANC of corrupt elements as part of a renewal process”.
“While there are a number of factors that have contributed to the drop in support, this result sends a clear message to the ANC,” he said. “I want to assure South Africans that we have listened to them.”
Mbalula said the party had suffered a “blow” and “has been defeated, but it's not over yet” and that it needed to work with other parties to adapt to its new role without a majority and lead the country.
The ANC will stick to its platform of “renewing and rebuilding the movement” and will focus on service delivery in areas where it is in power, responding to messages from voters.
He added that the party's seven top brass and national activities committee, along with the election team, would carry out an “in-depth analysis” of the party's performance and submit the report to the national executive committee meeting on Tuesday.
Responding to a question, Mbalula said he and the party leadership, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, would not step down over the poor results because the ANC does not operate in that way.
He said the party would analyse what went wrong and how to fix it but was “not playing the blame game” and that the election would not lead to resignations or the removal of party leaders.
“We stood our ground, we fought hard but we lost. Did we make mistakes? Yes, we made mistakes in government and everywhere else. We need to analyse it so we don't do it again,” Mbalula said.
“We need to analyse the bleeding caused by JZ forming a political party. If JZ had not formed the MK party and supported the ANC, we would not be here talking about this and that.”
Mbalula said Zuma had filled a “void” in KwaZulu-Natal, assumed the role of “father figure” to the province's people and shown himself to be a “force to be reckoned with”.
“That vacuum that he filled was detrimental to the ANC. It was not to Inkatha's advantage. It was not to our advantage. It was very much to his advantage,” Mbalula said.
The ANC will need to work with provincial leadership to consider ways of addressing this phenomenon.
He said there were no plans to sack the ANC leadership in KwaZulu-Natal for poor performance, telling reporters: “We have not taken any such decision.”
The party will promptly investigate whether party members secretly campaigned for MK during the election period and will also end its disciplinary proceedings against Zuma.
Mbalula said the ANC was suffering further from the “adverse effects of lower voter turnout” but was “humbled” by the fact that it remained South Africa's largest party despite the “significant decline”.
Referring to Zuma's threat that there would be “problems” if the South African Electoral Commission (IEC) announced the results on Sunday night, Mbalula called on South Africans to “resist” efforts to undermine democracy and “undermine the electoral process”.
“As a nation we stand united against those who threaten violence and destabilisation. As South Africans have shown in the past, we will not tolerate any threats to our democracy,” he said.
“South Africans have expressed their wishes through free and fair elections and we must all respect that.”
