The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng faces its toughest question ahead of the 2024 election. (Delwyn Verasamy)
In Kwazulu-Natal, the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa faces its toughest question ahead of the 2024 election. The dysfunction in the former is clear with the country’s most populous province and biggest city in Durban stuck in factional battles that are proving near impossible to overcome. The ANC’s best performance at the polls came in 2004, when under its former president – Thabo Mbeki – it managed a two thirds majority.
Key to that win was the supposed collapse of the regional power, Inkatha Freedom Party, as a force. It was a monumental victory, especially for a man who hails from the province. It seemed the moment when violence and volatility that has certainly been the hallmark of KZN politics in the years that I’ve been alive – centred on this battle between monarchists and a new black intelligentsia based in its urban centres – was on its way out – finally.
That was certainly the thought at the time, with little consideration that a nationalist party in shape and form, the ANC, was now infiltrated by a party largely associated with Zulu nationalism. In the wheeling and dealing that came with floor crossing legislation, the IFP lost key members to the governing party.
Just a brief background on floor crossing legislation that was introduced in 2002. The law allowed for individual members of municipal councils, provincial legislatures and national parliament to cross the floor from one political party to another. The law was changed six years later, restricting the crossing to specific periods before elections. This was all done to provide greater stability and to prevent the frequent party-hopping that was taking place.
My question at the time was whether the IFP members that were crossing over were being schooled on ANC policy and process? Were they being cleansed of the Zulu nationalist past, or being accepted as they are? I think this was answered in the emergence of Jacob Zuma years later who, more than his predecessors, leveraged on his ethnicity in his rise to power. It was a winning ticket.
With the rallying force of Zuma gone and becoming increasingly irrelevant within the party itself – if not to the general public in the province – the party has splintered into many factions. Some are still beholden to Nkandla, others to the incumbent in Ramaphosa and others to either Zweli Mkhize or Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma. Being Zulu is still advantageous.
Against this backdrop as well as rampant corruption and maladministration, the province of Kwazulu-Natal now looks like an impossible problem for the ANC – no matter the president – to solve. Where does one even begin to start – especially with elections just under 18 months away? An election, where its majority is under real threat. There’s no turning around this beast. There are many risks with Luthuli House getting involved in the provincial politics of the party, but leaving it as it is – is just as debilitating to the party.
The party’s Gauteng problem pales in comparison, but here too, there are factional battles that will prove difficult to overcome. Just who is in power in the second-most populous province – Panyaza Lesufi or L Maile (favoured by deputy president – Paul Mashatile) – is the big question in this province.
Combined Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng are the most urgent problems for the ANC. I don’t know if even the most unifying leader in its more recent history in Nelson Mandela would be able to overcome the problems of these two provinces, let alone an unpopular one, Ramaphosa.
But that’s exactly what the ANC has to do in order to maintain its majority in 2024. Political careerism, and the opportunism and self enrichment that has come to define the party in its near 30-year rule has come home to roost.
