By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Fikile Mbalula called the Local Government Elections (LGE) result “catastrophic”, even though it remains the largest party.
With 99% of votes counted, the ANC had 31% against 25% for its main rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA). uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party had about 10% of votes, putting it in third place.
Final results are expected to be announced at 6 pm on Sunday.
The outcome marks a painful setback for the ANC, which has seen its vote share fall steadily in local elections over the last 15 years due largely to failures in basic services.
Since no party won more than 50% of votes in many cities including Johannesburg, the ANC and DA will have to team up, or hash it out with smaller parties to form majority municipal governments.
Mbalula was speaking at the Independent Electoral Commission’s results operation centre (ROC) on Saturday.
He said the party would not go begging for positions when coalition talks begin soon.
Parties will have 14 days to negotiate before city councils are formed.
He said voters had spoken through the ballot and “if we fail to learn anything from these elections, we will never learn anything”.
“And if anyone has not heard what the people are saying through this election, then we are lost. This has been a very catastrophic outcome for the ANC. That we say plainly. As much as we are the largest party, it has been catastrophic for the movement.”
“The ANC must never be comfortable about this particular space we are in. We have worked tirelessly. We told [ourselves] that we will be at 34%. We knew what was happening. It’s not that we didn’t. We knew and we put up a fight. We ran a wall-to-wall campaign to push back,” he said.
Mbalula said that, as the country headed into the elections, the cost of living had risen and middle-class voters had turned their backs on the ANC “in big numbers”, particularly in Soweto and Tshwane, where many voted for ActionSA.
He said the party had lost hope in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) following the emergence of MK Party, but the results in the province had shown promising signs that the ANC was steadily regaining support.
He said the party had made the right call in Tshwane by requesting recounts in wards initially won by ActionSA, which the ANC subsequently won following the recounts. He said that the recounts should not be interpreted as evidence that the elections were not free and fair.
“If we didn’t learn from this election catastrophic disaster and allow wrong things to continue then we wouldn’t have learnt at all. So, we have a mandate from now. On Monday we will finalise through the officials a detailed analysis of this election,” he said.
Mbalula also said EFF leader Julius Malema’s comments were inappropriate and failed to address the issues at hand.
Malema blamed the ANC for legitimising what he called “white supremacist” or right-wing forces through its coalition and government arrangements with the DA.
He argued that the ANC legitimised right-wing and DA-led forces by partnering with them and awarding them key ministerial and governing portfolios.
Malema urged the ANC, the MK Party, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the EFF to abandon the DA, demanding that President Cyril Ramaphosa step aside to form a progressive alliance.