“Our obligation is always to the future,” former president Kgalema Motlanthe told a special meeting of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) last weekend. He was quoting the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, to describe the dangers of the ANC continuing on its current destructive path.
What Motlanthe did not say is that history takes prisoners. The ANC is a prisoner of its recent history, a prisoner of the perception — and often the reality — that its leaders are factional, selfish and corrupt miscreants; that they are distant and arrogant in the face of grinding poverty, unemployment, incompetence and mismanagement.
At the special NEC meeting the former liberation movement seemed to take its first tentative steps towards reform of the party and its relationship with the state. It is acting out of necessity. Its losses in the May election, when it lost majority support for the first time since 1994, showed that it can longer retain power by using a long and illustrious history to mask its deep flaws.
The ANC has either created or tolerated an entirely new layer of criminal syndicates feeding off state finances. According to Prof Anthony Butler of the University of Cape Town, the prime fix required of the party is its parasitic relationship with the state at all levels.
Renewing the ANC has, nominally, been on its agenda since the presidency of Nelson Mandela in the late 1990s, but the need has steadily become more urgent. When President Cyril Ramaphosa took over as party leader in 2017, an internal strategy and tactics document — anchored in a contribution by its former policy tsar Joel Netshitenzhe — was brutal in its assessment of the movement.
“Deviant conduct has become deeply entrenched and arrogance, factionalism and corruption have been identified by large sections of society, including ANC supporters, as dominant tendencies within the movement. Gatekeeping, money politics and fraud characterise most ANC electoral processes,” said the document.
“Underhanded practices increasingly define interaction between various spheres of government and the private sector; and private interests seek to capture and control not only state organs but also the ANC itself.”
Strong language indeed, but it did not stimulate any action. Seven years on, little had changed and the ANC was forced to form the government of national unity (GNU), with nine opposition parties, to continue governing the country.
The special NEC meeting at the weekend was explicitly aimed at renewal. Initiatives announced to reform the party were anchored in work done by veteran ANC leaders, including Pallo Jordan, Mac Maharaj and Sue Rabkin. The party stalwarts were blunt. They described the 2024 election outcome as “disastrous”. The result “must be a lesson that riding on a high horse leads to a crippling fall”. The ANC is now at its “weakest point as the leader of society” and in an “existential crisis”. The explanation is the rise of “rampant corruption, resource-inspired factionalism, crass materialism, careerism and money politics”.
However, the media have been awash with all this for years: political assassinations, crumbling state infrastructure, the R250m spent on former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, the attempted capture of the National Treasury and the seizing for a time of the South African Revenue Service, and the near-destruction of Eskom and Transnet. Crucially, state capture extended to each pillar of the criminal justice system, from the police to the National Prosecuting Authority, state security and even the public protector. All this points to avoidance and inaction on the part of a severely compromised ANC.
In this context, the 2024 election result — the party’s support slipped to just 40% — was hardly a jaw-dropping surprise. But it was a reckoning from the electorate, long in the making.
It may have been brought on in part by Zuma’s breakaway MK Party, but far more South Africans opted out of voting than cast their ballot for his populist project.
The ANC “fixes” adopted over the weekend are far-reaching in theory, but will they be implemented? And if they are, will they be enough?
Back to the branches
On Sunday Ramaphosa said the focus of the party over the next 18 months would be on its branches, on “rebuilding the organisation from the ground up ... ANC branches must ground themselves in the everyday struggles of ordinary South Africans to overcome poverty and inequality and create inclusive local economic development and jobs in communities.”
Former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas, speaking at the inclusive growth summit in the Drakensberg, said it was important to begin reconnecting communities with “the democratic project”. This was crucial, he said, to ensure the GNU does not simply morph into an “elitist pact”.
Ramaphosa continued: “The NEC emphasised that to achieve effective branches, renewal must also focus on individual ANC leaders and members. This includes raising the intellectual capacity and enhancing the moral and ethical orientation of leaders and members. It is in this context that we will ... launch the ANC foundation course. The course will be compulsory for every ANC member, public representative and leader, starting with members of the NEC.”
In line with this, the NEC adopted a “national rebuilding document”, which maps out the road towards reforming the organisation. The meeting also adopted further guidelines for the party’s integrity committee, including an appeals mechanism to bring its functioning in line with the principles of “natural justice”.
The integrity commission is the custodian of the values and ethics of the ANC. It must therefore ensure that ANC members and leaders uphold the values and ethics of the organisation at all times in their political, public and personal lives.”
— Cyril Ramaphosa
“The third element of renewal,” said Ramaphosa, “is about instilling integrity, ethics and organisational discipline. The integrity commission is the custodian of the values and ethics of the ANC. It must therefore ensure that ANC members and leaders uphold the values and ethics of the organisation at all times in their political, public and personal lives.”
Ramaphosa has been making worthy statements for a long time. They must be judged against his inaction in the saga over compromised justice minister Thembi Simelane, who has been implicated in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal. She remains in her post despite the allegations having surfaced more than two months ago.
David Makhura, the party’s political education head, tells the FM the renewal project that was started this weekend should run all the way through to 2032. But will it? What will happen if the ANC fares worse in the 2026 local government election? And will any reforms survive the party’s 2027 national conference, when Ramaphosa’s successor will be elected and he could become a lame-duck president or even be removed by the party?
There are no easy answers.
The new reforms include political education being rolled out from the top leadership structure down to party branches. It has been more than two decades since the ANC has had such a far-reaching political education programme, Makhura tells the FM.
The foundation course includes a detailed section on the country’s constitution and the Bill of Rights. It also includes the ANC’s history, its morals, values and core policies, ranging from nonracialism and nonsexism to the roles and responsibilities of ANC members to their communities.
Minister in the presidency and ANC NEC member Khumbudzo Ntshavheni tells the FM that now the country, not the ANC, comes first. (This would be a fundamental shift in thinking for an organisation which, for decades, fashioned the fate of a nation around its own battles.) “The ANC cannot serve for its own self, it serves the country ... There is no ANC without the country,” she says.
The political education process will be done throughout the organisation, but will target branches specifically.
It was also revealed at the NEC meeting that the ANC’s membership has declined significantly since its much-touted million member campaign back in 2012 — card-carrying members now stand at just 600,000. “Each one of us in the NEC has been assigned branches that we have to work with to rebuild trust in the ANC and the state,” says Ntshavheni.
Motlanthe suggested that every ANC member should be screened to deal with the decline in calibre of party members. Makhura tells the FM that the membership system is being digitised and overhauled. Every new ANC member will have to provide a written explanation for why they want to join the movement and what they are able to contribute to their community and the country. It is a stark shift from the past, when the membership system was plagued by bulk buying of members ahead of an elective conference and by “ghost” members.
All the initiatives are to be anchored in far-reaching changes at the party headquarters. For instance, party manager Fébé Potgieter is now overseeing performance monitoring, where she receives reports on governance from the local level all the way through to parliament to improve service delivery.
Makhura says: “We’ve got a group of researchers at headquarters who are tracking performance, performance everywhere where we govern. And this is new. This is all new. We haven’t felt the impact of this, not yet, it’s all new.”
No easy victories
The time it takes for reform initiatives to yield results is a factor that plagued Ramaphosa’s presidency from the onset. The impact of the most destructive period of the Zuma presidency was felt only in its aftermath, after Zuma had departed from office and Ramaphosa had replaced him.
The delayed impact of reforms works in the same way, says Ntshavheni. She cites state reforms as an example. Those that began during Ramaphosa’s first term are only beginning to yield material benefits now — fixing Eskom, for instance.
“The sixth [previous] administration reforms that we were driving — the first one that had a huge impact on the people is the electricity reforms. We said we’re going to get rid of load-shedding. Nobody believed us, and we achieved that milestone, it’s been almost a year. Why? Because we were dogged, we were focused, and we had a clear plan.”
It’s easy for the seventh administration [the GNU] to claim the victories of the sixth administration. The China-India visa reforms, they didn’t start now
— Khumbudzo Ntshavheni
Logistics reforms at Transnet are slower, but will soon accelerate and take shape. Visa reforms begun during the previous administration are only now happening.
“It’s easy for the seventh administration [the GNU] to claim the victories of the sixth administration. The China-India visa reforms, they didn’t start now. We had to say, these are the problems that we are confronted with. We cannot miss out in the big markets that are India and China.
“But the visa problem was an issue ... we put a team through Operation Vulindlela to work with the department of home affairs to unlock a number of things ... we should not claim easy victories,” she says. She is referring to DA home affairs minister Leon Schreiber, who has deftly claimed credit for crucial reforms in the portfolio.
Parties are gearing up for the 2026 local government election, which seems likely to be a tough one for the ANC. It will place further pressure on the party to reform itself but could also embolden those opposed to the GNU, in which the ANC and DA form the largest parties.
Operation Vulindlela — which is run from the presidency, and involves the National Treasury, government departments, business and labour — is set to turn its attention to fixing the metros and large cities. But time is running out for the ANC.
Butler argues that the ANC cannot be fixed — but it can “evolve in positive directions”.
He says: “Coalition government — and the electoral humiliation that brought it about — has certainly created an opportunity for change that did not previously exist.” What this “change” will entail is up to the ANC — and this will be decided by who it will elect to replace Ramaphosa in 2027.
“Coalition politics poses some new challenges. Should the ANC reform in ways that make it more compatible with parties like MK and the EFF? Or should it seek reforms that align it more closely with the DA?” Butler asks.
“The problems of the ANC in large measure flow from its relationships with the state. At all levels, it has become a parasite that feeds on state revenues which are then distributed to retain political power. Rather than just reforming the ANC, the leadership needs to break — or at least contain — the unhealthy relationships between politics, the state, and resources. Then the ANC would be able to properly pursue party political functions.”
Time is running out
Roger Southall, emeritus professor in sociology at Wits University, whose academic papers on the ANC have long predicted its decline, is more sceptical about the potential for reform.
“I suspect the only way for the ANC to seriously renew itself is for it to break up, and for the constitutionalist element to really decide what it wants and what it is. Some tricky questions to be tackled: Is it a social democratic party; if so, what does that mean? What should the relationship be between the public and private sectors?
“Is it really prepared to privatise — or franchise — key state-owned entities like Transnet? There is really an awful lot of thinking to be done, and I am not sure how much intellectual capacity there is left in the ANC.
“If the ANC can’t govern properly, and we see that it can’t, it’s not going to survive forever. South Africa is not Zimbabwe, and it will be much harder to rig elections to keep the ANC in power. Unless something dramatic happens and the GNU seriously prospers, the ANC’s popularity is going to continue to erode.
“2029? Perhaps it will hang around, but I cannot see it continuing in the same old way after 2034. South Africans will have had enough and will want to find some alternative. The challenge will be for genuine progressives to forge an alternative party that is credible. Not so easy, especially in a highly troubled world.”
The ANC is making the right noises, but then it always does. Southall says it is all “political theatre — no serious commitment at all.”
He is right to be sceptical.
The party’s Gauteng leadership has roundly rejected the GNU and defied the party’s own guidelines on coalition formation in the large, economically significant metros in the province.
Gauteng ANC leader Panyaza Lesufi runs the country’s most complex province mainly through political theatre. Actual service delivery has diminished dramatically under his watch. He has overseen the installation of puppet mayors in Joburg and Ekurhuleni, simply as a means for the ANC to run those metros with Julius Malema’s EFF. The impact on both metros has been disastrous. The ANC’s support in Gauteng has been in deep, steady decline, with an agile electorate clearly willing to dump the party.
Thami Ntenteni, former director of Radio Freedom in exile and an ANC veteran who works at the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, has addressed the leaders of Gauteng and the Free State about their failure to “take charge and take responsibility” for the party’s performance in the 2024 election.
“For there to be resurrection, there has to be death,” he tells the FM. “It is inevitable, but even at this late hour, I believe very strongly that if the ANC took charge and took control of its renewal, it could turn the corner.” He does not believe the GNU will last beyond the ANC’s elective conference in 2027.
Butler says there is a push by some in the ANC to align more closely with the EFF and MK, but Ntenteni says the idea that the ANC is ideologically closer to these parties is a myth.
Even at this late hour, I believe very strongly that if the ANC took charge and took control of its renewal, it could turn the corner
— Thami Ntenteni
“The state is disintegrating. We have to restore respect for the state and the only way to do that is to run the state well. The problem in the ANC is that no-one takes responsibility. When a business goes into liquidation, into business rescue, the first thing that happens is the executive who messes up is fired ... this does not happen in the ANC.”
Butler adds: “If the ANC does not wake up and take charge of the change needed by the electorate, that change will be imposed from outside.” That change may well come from parties such as MK, whose more than 2-million votes in the election came as a shock. On the other hand, when Zuma is no longer around as the magnet (he is 82), will MK collapse or bleed members back to the ANC?
MK and the EFF represent the worst excesses of the ANC. MK’s parliamentary caucus is largely made up of state capture and corruption accused who are former leaders of the ANC and government institutions. MK is an anticonstitutional, authoritarian, ethnocentric party which largely captured a tribal vote, yet the likes of Lesufi would prefer a tie-up with Zuma’s outfit rather than the current GNU arrangement.
Butler views the existence of MK and the EFF as a positive development, which in a way “externalises” ideological differences that have for the past three decades been tussling for prominence inside the ANC. “The ANC has held together a very wide range of ideological positions, regional interests, and ethnic and racial narratives. Most problematically, it has also had to accommodate growing class differences between black business elites, professionals, workers and the poor.
“In one way, the EFF does threaten internal coherence. But in another, it externalises internal conflicts — ideological, regional and generational — that would otherwise occur inside the ANC. MK has so far drawn its support overwhelmingly from KwaZulu-Natal or from Zulu speakers living in other provinces, though this might change.
“It is possible the emergence of this party will make it easier for the ANC to retain internal coherence, because it will reduce internal regional and ethnic tensions and associated factionalism. However, this still leaves open the challenge of how to form a coalition government.”
Who the ANC will coalesce with in future will depend on its leadership. Front-runners for the top post are Deputy President Paul Mashatile and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula. Some insiders say the former would likely lean more towards an alliance with MK and the EFF in future, if these two parties together win enough support to help the ANC cross the line.
However, this is not clear as yet. Mashatile has always described himself as a “social democrat”, making it difficult to see him aligning with a party such as MK. Another factor counting against him is his past relationship with Zuma, who is unforgiving towards opponents. Mashatile was at the forefront of the campaign to unseat Zuma from the ANC presidency, even before it became fashionable in the ANC and society.
Jonas said at the weekend that it was “hard to call the future”, but should the ANC push forward with the reforms agreed to over the weekend, it may have a chance at survival. Motlanthe told ANC leaders on Monday that “every journey begins at the end. Our duty and obligation is to the future ... the past is done ... the past, present and the future is always now.”
Whether the ANC ceases perpetuating the “now” in order to meet its obligations to the future remains to be seen. As Dr Johnson put it: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” For the ANC, the looming image of further electoral humiliation may finally be the catalyst to turn decades of fine words into uncomfortable action.
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