There was much about yesterday’s political drama to remind us of the ANC’s destructive electoral conference at Polokwane in 2007. At the event which started began the once impregnable party’s slide, delegates rallied under an “anyone by Mbeki” banner. This resulted in the elevation of incompetent and corrupt Jacob Zuma – and SA’s nine long years of misrule.
Last night, SA smaller political parties adopted an “anyone but ANC” approach. In Johannesburg Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA and his sometime allies of the EFF voted against the ANC’s candidates, handing the country’s largest city’s mayoral chain to the Democratic Alliance. Ditto in Ekurhuleni, the industrial hub to the east. Tshwane is likely to go the same way today.
While that blindsided the previously confident ANC, a far bigger surprise was Zulu-nationalist party Inkatha reneging on a well publicised pact with the ruling party. With the DA’s support (and sometimes the EFF’s), the IFP took control a number of municipalities in KZN, among them my beleaguered boyhood town of Newcastle. This morning the opposition is poised to repeat this in the biggest of them all, eThekwini.
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A change which was impossible ahead of that Polokwane conference and inconceivable even two years ago, may usher in a new era for SA. And potentially the end of ANC rule not just at the local level. Because when crooks are forced to leave the building, they can no longer able to hide their corrupt activities. No political party, even Mandela’s, will be able to recover from exposures of such rampant malfeasance.
More for you to read on the subject:
*Â Helen Zille on her Facebook page:Â “Yesterday was surreal. We worked so hard to be ready…….we did not expect this.”
*Â Herman Mashaba explains why he supported DA:Â “Action SA will always choose country before party.”
*Â Christopher Pappas: A new future for uMngeni starts today. DA mayor says access to opportunities is what gives meaning to hard won freedoms.
* Check into the Biznews Radio channel on Spotify around 8am for my interview this morning with Helen Zille where she unpacks what yesterday’s drama means for the DA – and South Africa.
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