Blood on the floor, but not a peep from the ANC's 'good guys'

The Gauteng ANC has established itself as a breed apart from its mother body, especially since Jacob Zuma became leader of the party. It has often whispered its unhappiness about his corrupt practices.

But the veneer of the "good guys" seems to be slipping.

Gauteng has never warmed to Zuma. In the run-up to the ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007 it cast around for an alternative candidate to him. Initially Tokyo Sexwale, a former premier, seemed like the real deal, but he lined up behind Zuma against Thabo Mbeki. He was rewarded with a cabinet post.

Five years later, at the Mangaung conference, Gauteng backed Kgalema Motlanthe, who had done a decent job as a stand-in president after Mbeki was ousted in 2008.

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Initially it looked as though Zuma would have a fight on his hands. Motlanthe was well respected.

But he seemed a reluctant candidate. He insisted on playing by the rules against a candidate who regards rules - and a country's laws, for that matter - merely as levers to be manipulated to his advantage. Motlanthe was outfoxed.

Gauteng was also betrayed by one of its own. Cyril Ramaphosa joined forces with Zuma at a time when many felt a Motlanthe-Ramaphosa ticket would have given Zuma a run for his money.

Ramaphosa clearly thought playing nice with Zuma would help him as he tried to chart his own way to the top. But Zuma is adept at using people and discarding them once they've served his purposes.

Gauteng has not recovered from Mangaung. The province's cause was not helped by the party's woeful showing in the 2014 general election, where Gauteng support fell by more than 10 percentage points, from 64% to 53.59%. It was the party's worst provincial performance.

Zuma was not in a forgiving mood. He dropped Gauteng party chairman Paul Mashatile from his cabinet. When Gauteng seemed reluctant to accept Nomvula Mokonyane for a second term as premier, preferring David Makhura, Zuma simply elevated her to his cabinet.

Makhura admitted last year that he had not had a meeting with Zuma since taking over as premier.

Gauteng accounts for almost 35% of South Africa's GDP. More than 140 national and international companies are headquartered there. Gauteng is without question the country's economic hub, yet Zuma can behave almost as if it didn't exist.

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Zuma's disdain is reflected in the composition of his cabinet. Gauteng representatives can be counted on one hand, whereas almost a third of the cabinet comes from KwaZulu-Natal, his home province.

Gauteng is also home to what Zuma dismissively calls "clever blacks", the black elite who seem to have decided that the ANC under his leadership doesn't represent their values.

It is the influence of this group that led to the ANC's calamitous performance in last year's local government elections, where it lost Tshwane and Johannesburg to the DA, and now governs the province's third metro, Ekurhuleni, with the help of a small party.

The symbolism of the loss of Tshwane, the seat of government, and Johannesburg, the economic capital, cannot be overemphasised. The ANC, ejected from both Cape Town and Pretoria, may be reduced to a rural party after the 2019 elections.

The party's response to the loss has been one of incredulity - or lashing out at scapegoats.

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One would have thought that, after such a drubbing, it would have engaged in honest introspection. How does the party reverse such losses? How does it make itself acceptable to the clever blacks again?

Instead of such thorough soul-searching, the party seems to have resorted to undisguised thuggery.

Since the election of Herman Mashaba and Solly Msimanga as mayors of Johannesburg and Pretoria respectively, the ANC's only contribution has been to try silence them or disrupt their programmes.

It's almost as if it is afraid the DA may just succeed in governing these metros successfully.

The ANC is clearly unwilling to accept the will of the people.

This week the thugs were at it again. They walked into a public consultation meeting in Midrand and unleashed their violence. A DA councillor and an EFF member were injured. The pool of blood amid the empty chairs and scattered papers was chilling to see.

Violence has no place in a democracy. It has to be condemned irrespective of who the perpetrators or victims are.

What has been most disappointing, though, is the silence of the leadership, both provincial and national. Either they approve of the thuggery or have lost control of their members.

Where are the likes of Mashatile and Makhura in all this? The only reasonable conclusion one can come to is that they're either deliberately sitting on their hands, or are quietly cheering the mob.

If these are the actions of the "good guys", what will happen when the real hoodlums eventually come out of the woodwork?

Is this a trial run for 2019?