ANC’s blame game

The ANC’s top leadership ignored and kept secret an internal report that laid bare the party’s problems and warned of disaster in the local government elections

Danny Jordaan did not provide his expected winning magic. President Jacob Zuma should have been left to deal with the Nkandla debacle by himself.

The full stadiums at election rallies during the latter part of the election campaign gave a false impression about ANC support.

These are some of the assessments coming through from the governing party, as the ANC national executive committee (NEC) meets for a four-day lekgotla in Pretoria to assess what went so wrong in the recent municipal polls.

An internal research report, compiled in May last year – 12 months before the election campaign was launched – indicates that the ANC knew it would do badly in the August 3 polls.

This, the report warned, would be because of a decline in voter support in the metros and widespread disaffection with the party and its leaders.

It admitted that the “DA [was] growing stronger” mainly among whites, coloureds and Indians – but was also gaining traction with a small percentage of black voters.

The internal report was presented to the party’s top six officials.

Leaders familiar with the report said it was not acted on and was kept secret from lower ANC structures for fear of demoralising the party’s volunteers.

It is unclear whether it was raised at this weekend’s postmortem.

The report found that ANC supporters were increasingly worried that the organisation was being used to put the interests of “self-serving and uncaring individuals before those they represent”.

It went on to propose that to restore voters’ trust, the ANC must deal with “misbehaving” leaders who “undermine its credibility”.

It urged a focus on delivering services to poor communities, doing away with populism and sticking to its principles and policies.

In Nelson Mandela Bay, a document drawn up by an ANC regional leader, Crispian Olver, revealed that poor election machinery and management, voter apathy and the “Zuma and Danny factors” had cost the party support.

Regarding SA Football Association president and former senior MP Jordaan, who was deployed to Nelson Mandela Bay by Luthuli House a year ago – in an effort to save the ANC’s ailing fortunes in the metro – Olver wrote:

“We did not make significant inroads into the northern areas [coloured areas] and Danny was not a winning formula for our township voters. Our claims to be rooting out corruption were undermined by the ongoing [world football governing body] Fifa scandal.

“The regional leadership was ambivalent about using Danny as the face of the campaign, and spent months in a silly process of ignoring the mayoral candidate [Jordaan]. This was not helped by Danny’s failure to work with the ANC campaign machinery or align and integrate his campaign with [that of] the ANC.”

Olver also wrote that the party was “hampered by self-sabotage”, whereby those left disgruntled by the list process actively tried to sabotage its campaign.

He said Eastern Cape provincial leaders caused unhappiness by “crudely tampering” with outcomes from branches.

And regarding the “Zuma factor”, the document found that “we underestimated the effect of the moral shenanigans of our national leaders”.

However, Zuma’s backers at this weekend’s meeting sought to blame the Gauteng leaders for losing crucial votes in the Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni metros, as well as the Mogale City Local Municipality.

ANC support fell below 50% in all these cities.

City Press has learnt that the Gauteng ANC, chaired by Paul Mashatile, came under fire for adopting an election strategy that sought to exclude Zuma and thus “drift away from the collective”.

“They are not special and it must never happen again,” said an NEC member who was present in the discussions.

However, Mashatile’s provincial executive committee would not be disbanded.

City Press heard that among those who took Gauteng to task was the ANC head of elections and campaigns Nomvula Mokonyane, who said the province thought it was “special” and “unique” because it had been the only one that initially refused to campaign with Zuma as the face of its elections.

Mokonyane has herself been blamed for a lacklustre campaign and speaking out of turn.

But Gauteng insiders said there had, in fact, been a standard agreement not to use Zuma’s face.

“We went and wooed [former presidents] Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe for those reasons. As Gauteng, there [was] a decision never to use a poster of JZ, never use a T-shirt of JZ – or else,” said an insider.

Labour federation Cosatu said it would not blame individuals, because the ANC had a collective leadership.

General secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the turnout at rallies gave a false impression that the ANC campaign was on track.

“On August 1, we were confident, judging by the attendance at rallies. But people decided differently when it came to the vote,” he said, adding that Cosatu did not expect the results to be that bad.

“There must be no finger pointing or apportioning of blame to individuals, but all our alliance formations must conduct a frank and honest introspection on how they contributed to the current election results,” Ntshalintshali said.

The SA Communist Party (SACP) said it was important that post-election corrective action be taken “in a sober, unifying and nonsectarian manner”.

Blaming and disbanding Gauteng’s leadership would have a devastating effect, it said. “Blaming one another would [lead to an] irreversible demise of the movement.”

SACP’s deputy secretary-general, Solly Mapaila, said it would have preferred that the alliance had had a chance to assess the election together, as “we all participate in the alliance”, but would wait for the ANC to do its own assessment.

Pointing out that national issues had taken centre stage in the polls, he cited Nkandla and factionalism as major reasons for the ANC’s losses.

“Decisions that are patronising do not help the integrity of the organisation and its principled stance. As a result, this could also compromise the party in the eyes of the public,” said Mapaila.

Predictably, there were also attempts to blame Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan for tweaking the formula to determine the numbers of councillors in municipalities in September 2014, when he was cooperative governance minister.

But an expert at the Independent Electoral Commission said the update to the formula only dealt with the number of seats per council based on voter registration, and not the calculation of seats.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told a media briefing on Thursday that the formula “gives space to smaller parties rather than being fair and proportionate”.

“We are putting [it] on the table for discussion whether it is a correct formula or it is stretching too much to give a voice to the smaller parties,” he said.

National support for the ANC has been on a downward trend since 2004, with the exception of KwaZulu-Natal.

The party was also grappling with low ANC voter turnout, with numbers comparable to those for the DA in 2014.

This trend continued in these municipal polls, with ANC voters – unhappy with the leadership and the imposition of ward candidates – staying at home, giving the opposition a much higher turnout.

The ANC’s May report anticipated that turnout for the municipal elections could be worse than 2011, when the opposition mobilised 7% more than the ANC in its voting districts.

Mapaila said the ANC and its allies needed to do “deeper reflection”.

“We need to go back and rekindle ourselves with our base, and engage them sharply,” he said.