Johannesburg - Political bickering and fights over the nomination of councillors and mayors led to the massive decline of support for the ANC in Gauteng during the 2016 national local government elections - but things have changed now.
This was the assurance given by SACP and Cosatu following their revelations that the nomination of 73 candidates to represent the ANC in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature after the May 8 national elections happened without any glitches.
Gauteng ANC has since 2014, experienced a massive drop in their electoral support and that escalated after the local government elections in 2016 which saw the party losing control of the City of Joburg and Tshwane to the DA.
SACP provincial secretary Jacob Mamabolo and Cosatu secretary Dumisani Dakile were adamant that the ANC fortunes will change in the upcoming elections. The parties said they have mobilised 5000 of its members of help ANC win elections.
“We have noted a seemingly and peddled narrative that seeks to insinuate and speculate that the ANC and its alliance partners will lose elections, and therefore place our province on the path of a coalition government. We dismiss this toxic speculation with the contempt it deserves,” Mamabolo said.
He said the narrative was premised on the outcomes of the 2016 local government elections but said that the conditions that prevailed then do not exist any longer.
Mamabolo said the internal fights over nomination of councillors and e-tolls had severely affected the ANC. They also listed rampant corruption within government particularly the Nkandla scandal.
“Our ANC headed alliance is more united, coherent and better coordinated at various levels, with improved performance in bi-elections and overall political stability, compared to 2016.
“Grievances and negative internal subjective contradictions that played themselves out during the nomination of councillors and mayors is a thing of the past and does not exist nor arise in the current national and provincial elections,” Mamabolo said.
Dakile agreed and said that the ANC Gauteng list has a 55% women representation.
Most of incumbent SACP and Cosatu members in the legislature have also been retained.
He said their list process went smooth and that guidelines were followed including the nomination of younger candidates on the list .
Mamabolo said the election of President Cyril Ramaphosa as party president after its Nasrec conference in 2017, has significantly increased the ANC’s chances of winning the elections.
“Political relations between opposition parties in our province and even nationally have imploded to the most severe and worse levels, compared to 2016. Many will recall how opposition parties used to call and convene joint press conferences, as if they were on the verge of forming a single united political party,” Mamabolo said.
He also said that the appointment of the Zondo Commission and other commissions of inquiries have given people hope that the ANC government was doing something about corruption.
“We are witnessing reassuring progress at various law enforcement agencies that demonstrate that the fight against corruption has taken a turn in our country,” Mamabolo said.