ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe was full of confidence on Friday morning as he told journalists to expect a massive turnout at the launching of the party's local government elections manifesto at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, in Port Elizabeth."Since the beginning of the week supporters, members and leaders of the ANC have been involved in an intensive mobilisation campaign, talking to our people and encouraging them to be part of the 100000-strong contingent expected at the stadium on Saturday," Mantashe said.It was not to be. On Saturday the ANC's national chairman, Baleka Mbete, announced that about 42,000 people had made it into the stadium. The stadium can accommodate 46000 people, and the party had expected overflow areas to be packed. They were empty.To get 42,000 people into a stadium is no mean feat. Ask Bafana Bafana or any of our professional football teams. That the ANC can still get such numbers is a credit to the organisation.But this is the ANC, dammit! There was a time when the party would not have needed to lift a finger to fill the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. It would have been inundated with people coming of their own volition and finding their own way. This time, buses had been organised from all nine provinces. And yet the party still failed to fill the stadium to its capacity of 46,000, let alone attract half the number of people it had confidently predicted.Even on Saturday morning, when it became clear that the turnout would be disappointing, ANC officials were still clinging to the hope that they could make the 100000 target.ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa told the Mail & Guardian on Saturday morning that the stadium wasn't filled to capacity because some buses from Eastern Cape left late. He said more people were expected later.They never came. What is going on here? Only ostrich-like ANC members and leaders will fail to see the writing on the wall: their party is in trouble and it needs to take some tough decisions. If it does not, it faces a whipping in Nelson Mandela Bay and perhaps Tshwane and Joburg.The run-up to Saturday was nowhere near as smooth as party leaders had expected. The party faced burning tyres, barricades and angry protesters in the townships. Leaders of ANC branches told party deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte that the party was making a mockery of its own constitution by failing to discipline President Jacob Zuma for the Nkandla outrage and failing to apologise for the debacle.ANC Women's League president Bathabile Dlamini broke down in tears when community members prevented her from entering a drug rehabilitation centre and told her that she was drunk on expensive whisky. All this in a week when the party wanted to "shock and awe" a city where only 10 years ago it commanded 66% support- the figure is now a paltry 48%.The ANC's woes this weekend will please the opposition parties. Indeed, EFF leader Julius Malema was quick to wade in, telling supporters that the governing party's failure to fill the stadium showed that the ANC was dead."The ANC is history; Zuma is history; the ANC was buried with Nelson Mandela. That was the end of the ANC. This is the future."We told you and we were not lying. Zuma is hyperventilating. If he can't fill a stadium, it means it is over for the ANC. If you ever doubted that, bye-bye," he said to cheers and chants in Mamelodi, Tshwane, on Saturday.This is not the first time the ANC has faced tough competition and possible loss of power in PE. After three years of the hapless Ben Fihla in the mayoral office, last May the party took the tough decision to kick him out of office and replace him with Danny Jordaan. Say what you like about the soccer boss and his problems with Fifa and the law, but ask anyone in PE and they will tell you that he is slowly turning the municipality around. His biggest problem is that fellow regional ANC leaders want him out because he is doing such a good job of breaking up their corrupt patronage networks.The lesson the ANC needs to take away from the past week in Eastern Cape is simple. It needs to do to Zuma what it did to Fihla in Nelson Mandela Bay. It needs to put its scandal-soaked and corrupt leader out to pasture or, better still, allow him to face the law as he should have back in 2007. It needs to do so urgently or it will find itself out in the wilderness come August 3.One of the most potent quotes of the manifesto launch came from an ANC supporter at the stadium on Saturday. Business Day described the scene as Zuma walked onto the pitch, flanked by others, such as Cyril Ramaphosa.Looking on, an ANC supporter said: "He is destroying those next to him."He is destroying the ANC...