President Cyril Ramaphosa says his party will win the 2024 national elections by an outright majority. He would be demented not to say that. Who enters a boxing ring telling the world that they expect a hiding or, at best, a draw?
Ramaphosa told editors, analysts, academics and a huge chunk of his cabinet in Sandton on Saturday September 2: “The ANC is going to achieve an outright majority ... Many people in our country still see the ANC as the only vehicle that can continue with the transformation process and make it better.”
It was surreal to be in the room. That morning the death toll from the Joburg hijacked-building fire had reached 76 (it has since risen to 77, and may rise further).
Some in Ramaphosa’s cabinet were blaming apartheid for the fire, or claiming that the government had no responsibility towards the housing of illegal immigrants (many of those who died in the inferno were from other parts of Africa).
Ramaphosa is always charming and talks a good game but, as analysts in the room pointed out, his party’s scorecard on everything from housing to running municipalities and education is abysmal. There was a depressing sense of defeat — not just for the ANC, but for the country too.
So how does Ramaphosa intend to win an outright majority? He didn’t say, but I see two key messages: first, that apartheid is still responsible for much that is wrong with the country and, second, that the ANC will deliver a basic social grant soon.
In Saturday’s three-hour interaction, Ramaphosa spoke of the “shadow of apartheid” hanging over the ANC’s efforts to “build a better life for all”.
One of his most perplexing assertions was that South Africa does not have many town planners and engineers because apartheid’s architects “did not train black people”. Challenged on this by political scientist Sithembile Mbete, he said there may be some black town planners but they “are not from Pampiersdorp”. There isn’t a town called Pampiersdorp in South Africa. It’s Pampierstad. Ramaphosa’s point is laughably weak. Whose fault is it that after 29 years in power the ANC has not produced black town planners (something that many black town planners disputed vehemently on social media after Ramaphosa’s assertion)?
The day before, social development minister Lindiwe Zulu had stood in front of the gutted Joburg building where 77 people died and said: “Whether we like it or not, this is the result of apartheid.” The transport minister joined in by blaming apartheid for the collapse of Transnet and rail infrastructure.
There was a depressing sense of defeat — not just for the ANC, but for the country too
The ANC’s second election message is to dangle the prospect of a basic income grant before the electorate. On Saturday Ramaphosa touted the rollout of the social relief of distress (SRD) grant as one of the great successes of his administration in the past four years.
It’s a drum he has beaten regularly this year. In his state of the nation address in February, he said: “Work is under way to develop a mechanism for targeted basic income support for the most vulnerable while within our fiscal constraints. This will build on the innovation we introduced with the SRD grant.”
In March, he hailed the SRD grant rollout as one of the best achievements of South Africa’s democracy. Whether South Africa can afford the grant has become one of the most contested issues in the ANC and in economic circles. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said in 2021: “The weakness I see in the debate is there is more focus on how you support the unemployed. There is little attention on the long-term issue of growth ... If we manage to grow the economy and build the labour force that can be absorbed by that economic growth, then we can really grapple with the problems.”
The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that the National Treasury “is proposing radical measures to rein in runaway government spending, warning of ‘unprecedented challenges’ and raising a red flag over South Africa’s deteriorating public finances”.
Despite this, Ramaphosa seems set on an expansion of the grant, or at least he means to talk about it a lot in the next eight months. There will be many other messages ahead of the polls, but these two will, in my view, be the ANC’s main strategies of offence (“social grants are coming”) and defence (“it’s apartheid’s fault”).
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