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The recent parliamentary election in South Africa, where the well-established African National Congress (ANC) lost its erstwhile watertight parliamentary majority, can aptly be described as the piecemeal decimation of a once roaring lion – or for obvious reasons, the scratch of a festering sore without the curative antidote.
What happened, you might wonder: was the election rigged? Were the party’s stalwarts unprepared? Less of the former and more of the latter I’d say.
When the racist, apartheid regime of F.W. de Klerk ended in South Africa in the mid-90s, culminating in the democratically-conducted election that ushered in President Nelson Mandela in 1994, all the citizens had high hopes, and rightly so. The entire country had been under the yoke of a dehumanizing racial segregation that lasted forty-six whole years (1948-1994), in which fellow human beings were treated to eternal servitude because of the pigmentation of their skin or the packets of melanin contained therein.
In this vein, therefore, the multiparty election of that year was a welcome relief for the people, and a breath of fresh air, but little did the masses know that most of their elected representatives were just under the shadows of the venerable Mandela. When he spoke, they say “we spoke…” and when he spelt out a policy, they say “our viable policy is…” However, when Mandela’s term came to an end, and he decided to leave the stage graciously and not seek reelection, most of these opportunists were caught napping: the proverbial lid, having been blown off. More so, and to the consternation of the electorates who had consistently voted for the party since the dawn of democracy, the party and some of its stalwarts became mired or embroiled in political corruption, bribery, and other financial improprieties. Those electoral promises of taking the poor voters to El Dorado, therefore, became an illusion, a mirage in a desert.
Former President Jacob Zuma, who was president of the country between 2009 and 2018, had allegations of corruption in an arms deal and was even sentenced to jail for refusing to testify to other financial sleazes that were attributed to him.
Also worth noting, is the current Secretary-General of the party, Mr. Ace Magashule, who had a string of corruption and fraud charges hanging over his neck like the Sword of Damocles. He was summoned to court recently to clear his name. The case is still ongoing.
Taking this further, the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was accused of bribery and money laundering in the so-called “Farmgate” scandal, where about US$4 million in cash was allegedly concealed in a sofa in his private Phala-Phala game farm, near Limpopo, in the northernmost province of the country.
While the party’s officials got carried away by the perquisites of office, thinking there would be no tomorrow, they forgot that the oppressed electorates’ learn by osmosis: they see, hear, and read about how their most cherished party, the ANC, has been bastardized and diminished by politicians who do not have one damned scruple about morality. And then the day of reckoning eventually came on May 29, this year, and the voice of the oppressed rang loud and clear.
The ANC, presently on wobbled feet, was only able to get 41% of the votes cast, a far cry from 2019, where it bagged 57%. Although it prides itself on being “the single largest party,” but this is just an empty braggadocio, as it will need to partner with other parties to govern. This could be the Democratic Alliance (DA), a party seen as a white minority party, advocating principally for white interests; Jacob Zuma’s MK party which came third or even the Marxist-Leninist’s Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF).
This, admittedly, is not a familiar terrain for the ANC which had held fort for many decades. One could tentatively argue, therefore, that the sought-after coalition – which incidentally, has become a desideratum – may end up a marriage of strange bedfellows. My reasoning: legislation hitherto passed without much a whimper when ANC was in the majority, will now witness some tumultuous filibuster and gerrymandering since that majority has petered out.
It’s currently been touted that Zuma’s MK party will not go into a coalition with the ANC unless it sacks the country’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who himself, has said he will not resign or submit to being sacked even though his party, the ANC, had suffered a bloody nose. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the ANC’s proposed coalition with the Democratic Alliance will be enough to weather the storm without the MK party.
The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Mr. John Steenhuisen, himself, appeared to be one who had had the last laugh. Asked what the electoral results signified, he smiled broadly and remarked: “Yeah, we’ve always wanted to crack their (ANC’s) majority. Now, we’ve succeeded in that…”
When a man of his political stature speaks like that, he isn’t funny or stupid. To put it succinctly, the ANC had better fastened their seatbelts, as a bumpy ride awaits them.
The shocking results have undoubtedly sent the ANC’s political stalwarts licking their wounds. As an ANC admirer, myself, I can almost feel the ghosts of the iconic Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and others, rolling in their graves on the realization that the party they had strenuously labored for, toiled for, and died for, is now a shadow of its former vibrant self and hanging perilously on the edge of a political precipice.
The thumping, notwithstanding, I would say all hope isn’t lost.
Some of the party’s notable politicians, who equate governance with lootocracy, must now wake up from their deep slumber and reexamine the reason they had come out with the worst electoral result in thirty years. They must evaluate or critically assess their profligate lifestyles against the beggarly existence of the poor South Africans who had throughout the years, stood steadfastly with the ANC, hoping for good schools for their children, affordable health service, and a better standard of living.
Unemployment should be seriously looked into, as there are people who can readily testify that the demise of the apartheid system over three decades ago has not positively affected them in any way, as the rate of unemployment stands at an alarming 32.9%. Young females fare worse, as theirs currently stands at a whopping 50%.
In addition, ANC’s policy makers and elected councilors must do all within their powers to revamp those nauseating shanties: the so-called “squatter camps” in Soweto, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and others. Worse than the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the entire area is castrated in development, as hopeless and hideously poor citizens go about their daily activities like shell-shocked skeletons drifting across another planet.
The politicians of course, knew things weren’t right in these communities, but they simply looked the other way, allowing the ugly sore to fester. Now, is payback time!
I hope all I have adumbrated falls not on deaf ears. Notwithstanding, however, if these politicians resort to the business-as-usual kind of politics and continue to play ducks and drakes with the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the country, then the next election in 2029 will see the ANC taking further blows from the electorates, leading to a shift of the tectonic plates, and maybe an eventual return to white minority rule.
If that happens, then it will be a big farewell to Black oppressors and good riddance to bad rubbish.
Martins Agbonlahor is a trained lawyer, journalist and author. He resides in Greater Manchester, The United Kingdom.
