WeeklySA_AdminTHE ANC URGED TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE
Several major political parties are licking their wounds after almost three days of drama which saw the new kid on the block, the MK Party surprising all and sundry especially in KwaZulu-Natal and the big guns struggling with the ANC failing to garner enough votes for an outright majority nationally and in the Gauteng province.
The preliminary results have shown that the ANC, which had been tipped to lose by large margins at almost all the provinces due to non delivery of services, surprised many by convincingly winning with convincing margins in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Free State and North West and claiming 49 percent of the votes in Northern Cape. The big winner, however, is the MK party which performed extremely well in KZN followed by the IFP and the ANC.
Although the heads of the four international observer missions, including the African Union Election Observer Mission and the SADC Election Observer Mission have declared the elections free, fair and credible, some political parties have voiced dissatisfaction over a number of issues with the MK party demanding the votes in KZN be recounted. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has promised to probe these complaints before the declaration of the final results on Sunday, May 2, 2024. Described as the most challenging elections ever since the ANC came into power in 1994, many people have hailed the elections as the most interesting because the electorate used their voting power to voice their displeasure at the ruling ANC party – which they accused of having failed to deliver services as promised – by voting for the opposition parties thereby costing the ANC dearly.
Shell-shocked by the failure to garner enough votes for a majority rule nationally and in the Gauteng province, the ANC is now left with no choice but to seek coalition partners to govern. The question however is who are the likely political parties to rule with the ANC which has already conceded that they would look for a parties that shared their views. Although reasons for their dismal failure have not yet been divulged, the ANC’s slump followed, amongst others, the public anger over corrupt senior members in their fold, escalating crime, long periods of load shedding, failures by their municipalities to attend to critical issues such as potholes, collapsing infrastructure and implementation of by-laws to act against illegal dumping and reckless and drunken driving in the townships, amongst others. This year’s general election results should serve as a wake-up call for the bruised ANC. While the leadership conceded during the election campaign to having made mistakes in the past, this is the time for the party to take the South African public seriously. This is the time to serve those people in the rural areas they only visit during the election campaigns. This is the time to listen to the people who put them into power. While the leaders are struggling to swallow the bitter pill of this poor showing, they should be reminded that people learn more from losing than winning.
