In
24 months, South Africa will face the Local Government elections to constitute
the 7th Municipal Administration in its municipal jurisdictions. Local
government elections give us municipal ward-based reaction feedback on the
impact of statewide plans on households. Society engages with and experiences
government through municipal government. This makes 2026 a make-or-break
political year for all parties, particularly the ANC. 

In
the 2026 municipal elections, the ANC will face a graver threat to its ability
to remain a significant player in South Africa’s political power architecture.
Never has it faced multiple threats to its power at the same time in such a
short space of time. The end of five-year terms by its sub-national structures-
from ward-based branches to almost all its regional executive committees. Not
since the 2021 overall municipal elections outcome of less than 50% performance
with a national absolute majority, the ANC had to contend with the reality of a
proven national voter support of 40%. No member or supporter of the ANC alive
can remember when the opposition complex had such anti-ANC political capital as
the one in RSA today. 

 

The
challenge is that the 2026 local government elections will require a strong and
coherent response from the ANC. Evidence is that the liberation movement is
outside the task. Its divided, self-aggrandist, ideologically impoverished, and
fractured beyond reconstructable leadership needs to convince that it is hard
at work to reverse the tide towards oblivion. The integrated, interconnected,
and sophisticated threat posed by voter signals of discontent, and not outright
rejection of the liberation movement, has become the most significant
limitation to its capability to ensure that the ANC and its historically fought-for
democratic values prevail. 


The
ANC NEC, its President as a person, the alliance partners, and the RSA
establishment face an existential conundrum. On the one hand, there is the
obligation to sustain RSA as a competitive economy that punches at its
appropriate weight level, and on the other is the challenge to truncate the
almost irreversible march towards a failed democratic order and, thus, a
fragile failed state.  The growing polarisation of politics and
ideological disarray within the ANC as a liberation movement and society leader
is a cause of concern and an indicator of a march toward self-extinction. 


The
ANC “finds itself in a uniquely treacherous position: facing aggressive
(political) adversaries with a propensity to miscalculate yet incapable of
mustering the unity and strength necessary to mount” a political comeback
in the upcoming political elections. The commitment and consistency of
political response, including unencumbered leadership, will define the future
of the ANC as a leader of society. 


Given
that public discourse and political philosophy largely neglect the
pervasiveness of dysfunctional governance, the leadership function has since
been about truncating the evaporating political power. This is despite
executing the governing party’s obligations imposed by voter mandate. Invoking
the leader of society’s obligations of ANC membership and combat responsibility
duty makes being an ANC renewalist a condition. 


The
ANC is a divided reality. It is a case study of political disintegration on note.
It represents how democracy has become the justifying political and
representation ideology of the historically disenfranchised in our era. It has
reached a level where loyalty to it is a function of heritage and identity,
less and less of ideology. Emotional attachment and not a rational relationship
with what it stands for has become its new currency. A growing addiction to
romantic-type theories marks its dominant rhetoric and somewhat political
nomenclature. Its dominant identity is about what it is opposed to, what it
wants to change or deconstruct, and what it is moving away from. This is
despite it being in command of a monopoly to define and control its and
society’s destiny. 


How
the ANC recovers from the loss of absolute majority power in all of RSA’s
metropolitan areas and overall nation will be a function of how it is about the
well-being of society. How it embraces the truth that people are jaw-droppingly
disinterested in the history of its politics will define its future electoral
fortunes. The brute truth is that citizens vote based on their (economic) well-being.
There is always a correlation between personal (income) growth, standard of
living and voter behaviour. When indecisive, voters look for politicians or
parties who match their identities. Incumbents generally get punished even for things
that are not in their control, such as weather and, lately, fake news and
manufactured realities. 


The
ignorance of society, a form of political power, is a resource “the
people” are resistant to share with the knowledgeable except themselves
and mavericks in society. As the oldest political platform of blacks, and
Africans in particular, consent on who has the legitimacy to the authority of
government, the revival of the ANC lies in finding where that position it had disappeared
to. It is now about how democratic it is prepared to be as society matures in a
democracy created by the country’s constitution. It might not be enough to believe
that the people shall govern when humanity’s perpetual question is, ‘Who shall
govern me?’. The further freedom people want after fundamental freedoms are
guaranteed is what immediate post-liberation struggle parties must invest in to
stay in power. CUT!!