Zuma's prophecy comes back to haunt a complacent ANC

Such has been the nature of the events of the past two weeks that even reports of an earth tremor in Durban and Pietermaritzburg on Friday morning quickly took on a political slant.

The joke doing the rounds was that the ground shook in the two KwaZulu-Natal cities when ancestors heard a rumour that the "Jesus" whose "arrival" in Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Johannesburg had kicked ANC mayors from power was now eyeing the Banana City.

President Jacob Zuma must rue the day he bragged that the ANC "will rule until Jesus comes back".

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As one metro after another fell into the hands of DA-led coalitions in a tsunami of defeats for the ANC, ruling party opponents mockingly reported sightings of a "Second Coming" in those cities.

But, jokes aside, what we have witnessed is a seismic shift in our political landscape.

The ANC, the dominant political force in South Africa since the mid-'80s (when it was still in exile), has been voted out of all major metros bar eThekwini and Ekurhuleni.

In Ekurhuleni it has only just held on to power - with help from the African Independent Congress, the Patriotic Alliance, the PAC and a residents' association.

Elsewhere - where the party also failed to get the 50% of the vote that would allow it to continue to govern - opposition parties have refused to come to its rescue, instead choosing to support the formation of DA-led coalitions.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane and his team could justifiably take much credit for this change in his party's political fortunes.

They worked hard to deliver on their promise to prevent the ANC from winning majorities in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg.

But the role of Maimane's predecessor, Helen Zille, in preparing the ground for co-operation among opposition parties should not be forgotten.

For years Zille worked tirelessly for what she termed the political realignment of opposition politics. Her party worked closely with Patricia de Lille's now-defunct Independent Democrats to win Cape Town, and later the Western Cape outright.

block_quotes_start It may not have won any municipality, but Malema's party sealed its position as the country's third-biggest political party. block_quotes_end

The strategy did not always bear fruit. For instance, in 2011 the DA had banked on COPE performing well in Nelson Mandela Bay, only for Mosiuoa Lekota's party to disappoint - leaving the ANC to win the metro by a few votes.

Then there was the short-lived alliance with Mamphela Ramphele and her AgangSA outfit, which ended in tears for both parties.

However, by the time Zille stepped down as DA leader she had laid a strong foundation for co-operation among opposition parties on issues of mutual interest.

From the time Maimane became DA parliamentary leader following the 2014 elections, he stuck to Zille's approach by working closely with smaller parties as they took on the ANC in parliament.

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At times he was criticised for this approach, even by some of his colleagues, who believed that co-operating with the likes of the EFF would result in him and the DA being overshadowed by EFF leader Julius Malema, who was increasingly sounding like the de facto official opposition leader in the National Assembly.

The strategy has now paid off - for the first time giving the DA political control over large urban areas outside the Western Cape.

The party's job was made easier by the post-2014 ANC caucus in parliament, which has treated opposition parties - with the exception of Themba Godi's African People's Convention and, possibly, the National Freedom Party - with hostility on contentious issues such as Nkandla.

In its ill-thought-through plan to avoid the president being made to pay a portion of the R246-million spent on upgrading his private home, the ANC alienated opposition parties - refusing to use persuasion to win them over on issues and instead choosing to use its numerical supremacy in the house to shut down opposition objections.

This united the opposition benches, with parties that had previously seen each other as competitors opting to work together.

That co-operation resulted in a number of morale-boosting victories for opposition parties, the most notable being the EFF and DA's successful Constitutional Court challenge to parliament's decision that Zuma should not be held liable for some of the Nkandla costs.

But the greatest victory of them all, without doubt, came in the form of the election results. The question now is: what is next for the opposition?

Smaller parties such as COPE and Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Movement continued to show signs of decline in this election. Do they take the Independent Democrats route and eventually fold into the DA? It could be the most logical thing for both parties as, on their own, they are not likely to grow.

block_quotes_start There are even suggestions that ANC leaders in the province have been too cosy with their erstwhile comrades in the EFF and, as a result, not aggressive enough in fighting off Malema's campaign  block_quotes_end

The EFF, on the other hand, would have been boosted by the outcome. Predictions that the populist party would go the way of COPE by collapsing after participating in its first election have proved hollow.

It may not have won any municipality, but Malema's party sealed its position as the country's third-biggest political party.

Malema's decision to back DA mayoral candidates as opposed to those of the ANC will go a long way to put paid to the lingering suspicion that he was using the EFF as a bargaining tool for a future return to the governing party.

As for the ANC, its failure to retain power in Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg further underlines its diminishing political status as the "leader of society" it likes to see itself as.

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A few years ago, the party would have had little trouble finding smaller parties to help it win those councils.

It remains by far the largest political party, but it is clearly isolated and too consumed by its internal problems to reach out to other parties.

And the situation is not about to improve. In a few months, the party will go to an elective national conference that is bound to be preceded by a bruising leadership battle that can only further harm its image in the eyes of voters.

There are indications that the battle lines have already been drawn, with the dominant faction in the party blaming the losses in Gauteng on provincial chairman Paul Mashatile and his executive committee.

In the run-up to the elections, the Gauteng ANC leadership was the most vocal among those in the party who wanted to see the back of Zuma. This, argue the president's supporters, means the province entered the election with its attention divided.

There are even suggestions that ANC leaders in the province have been too cosy with their erstwhile comrades in the EFF and, as a result, not aggressive enough in fighting off Malema's campaign.

It would be no surprise in coming weeks to hear calls for the Gauteng ANC leadership committee to be dissolved.

There is, of course, a possibility that the outcome of the August 3 election may prompt the party's rank and file to remove Zuma and others early from office, fearing that their continued stay would cost the party the Union Buildings in 2019.

But, given Zuma supporters' hold on most of the important decision-making structures in the party, such a possibility is really remote.