John Matisonn: ANC, the wounded buffalo, faces a challenging 2025

Key topics.Ramaphosa warns ANC must "renew or perish," echoing calls for reform since Mbeki.Internal divisions, SACP rivalry, and poor PEC performance weaken the ANC further.ANC's rivals face challenges, but Ramaphosa's focus remains on internal reforms..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here..If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.By John Matisonn* ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.The once-proud African National Congress opened a diminished 2025 celebration with the usual disarming honesty about the party's declining plight, when President Cyril Ramaphosa declared it must "renew or perish". .But the recipe for renewal offered little different from the formula going back 20 years, when President Thabo Mbeki insisted the party had to create a "new cadre", members with renewed idealism, purpose and integrity. The reaction of both party VIPs and the audience to Ramaphosa's keynote speech seemed disengaged and inattentive, providing sporadic and pro forma applause. .Though the ANC has seen some gains in recent local by-elections, it remains plagued by internal divisions, a loss of confidence and a lack of a fresh vision. Ramaphosa took aim at the most obvious recent threat, that the South African Communist Party (SACP), the third leg of the ANC-led tripartite alliance, has decided to compete against the ANC in the next elections..SACP candidates are unlikely to make significant inroads, and could further advance the day when the SACP itself perishes, but with the ANC down to only 40% at last year's election, even a few percent taken from the ANC would leave egg on ANC faces..The president hopes to deflect the SACP from this course, and he may have a chance given that its leaders remain in cabinet and might not wish to risk their own positions..The party's internal problems go much further, as it navigates the shoals of crippled provincial executives (PECs) in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal that are fighting not to be restructured, while Secretary General Fikile Mbalula threatened disciplinary action against senior members as he himself made headlines for the wrong reasons..The main page one story in the Sunday Times was about Mbalula causing a negative stir by arriving on Robben Island in a private luxury yacht, eschewing the ferry the rest of the ANC party used..Read more: 🔒 Hartford: SA's political crisis – The ANC faces a reckoning as populist offshoots split the nationalist legacy.The National Executive Committee will meet this week to discuss the possible dissolution of both due to their poor performance in last year's elections. The ANC's national working committee recommended last September that the two PECs be dissolved and new leaders elected..But this could spark public rebellion or further defections to former president Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe Party. One weekend report claimed there is a "uMkhonto Wesizwe party battalion" operating inside the ANC..Mbalula remained on the offensive, calling former National Assembly chief whip Tony Yengeni "a political Casanova… spewing vagrant political views …that are embraced by a few malcontents who are opposed to the ANC. ."I took Ace Magashule and Jacob Zuma to the DC (disciplinary committee) and I will take Tony Yengeni," Mbalula said. "I don't need an NEC meeting to charge wayward behaviour of an NEC member.".The best news as the ANC celebrated its 113th anniversary with its January 8 – held on January 11 — was that its rivals, MKP and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) faced internal squabbles of their own. .Zuma recently complained about his own party's continuing ill discipline as the EFF lost one of the last of its former stars when Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi resigned from parliament, leaving Malema the only national figure left..In his speech, dominated by talk of reforming the party internally rather than a broad new vision, Ramaphosa targeted building on success at Eskom with improved rail, local government and water provision..City Press editor Mondli Makhanya summed up the mood with his tongue cheek prediction of unlikely headlines for 2025 with "CR does something."."What most South Africans believed would never happen has happened: President Cyril Ramaphosa did something. This surprise development has shocked political analysts, journalists, opposition parties, unionists, business leaders and even members of Ramaphosa's own party.."For years, since his first inauguration in February 2018, South Africans have been expecting and calling on the president to do something. Anything! After impatiently waiting for him to do something, the unanimous conclusion was that he was just incapable of it. Then came this shock.".Read also:.🔒 FT: Investors cheer as Cyril Ramaphosa sworn in as South Africa's president🔒 Ramaphosa's leadership tested as GNU struggles to deliver on renewed optimism: Justice MalalaPresident Cyril Ramaphosa and the art of lying: Andrew Kenny.*John Matisonn is the author of CYRIL'S CHOICES, An Agenda for Reform.