JUSTICE MALALA | We’ve run out of good reasons to keep ANC in power. The rest is blackmail

Imagine the ANC brought some of its best minds into one room and set them a challenge.

“Make a case to the SA people for why we should be re-elected in 2024,” says the convener of the meeting. What would they say? What would they do? I am certain outgoing SA Communist Party chief Blade Nzimande would be one of the first in the room to raise his hand. In case you are wondering, Nzimande would be in the ANC meeting because, traditionally, the SACP has been a big chunk of the ANC’s brains trust. Last week, at the SACP conference, Nzimande gave us a peek into what his answer would be.

“I met with several former liberation movements in Africa, and they’ve warned us about allowing the ANC to lose power. They’ve warned us that if the ANC loses power, we would put the continent in a mess. We will return the country to white people,” Nzimande said.

So to be clear: the country is burning, our young are dying in taverns, food is unbearably expensive, unemployment is at historic highs, poverty is endemic, violence against women increases unabated, corrupt ANC politicians are trying to destabilise the country — but Nzimande’s reason for returning the ANC to power would be that we should not “return the country to white people”.

There is nothing about accelerating the education of SA’s children, or building a prosperous country, or ending corruption, or installing ethical leadership, or exploiting our vast mineral resources for the betterment of our people. No, ma’am. It’s all about staying in power and not returning “the country to the whites”.

As they say in KwaZulu-Natal, sifile — we are dead.

You must be a psychopath to think that changing place names is more important than giving students clean running water.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for any rational person to make a logical case for the ANC to stay in power. Both the good and bad sides of the ANC are failing spectacularly to meet the key challenge of leading the country at local, provincial or national level. The path to stability and prosperity for SA no longer lies in the ANC or a “good version” of it. The future of SA lies in an ANC that is in the opposition benches, with support below 40%, while a new cadre of leaders take us in a new direction. This conclusion can be made for any municipal or provincial structure in SA.

Take Nelson Mandela Bay, a city now faced with a devastating drought. The DA, accompanied by about eight smaller parties, is vying to unseat the ANC from the running of the metro. Who should win? Believe me, logic and sanity demand that the DA build a coalition and run the metro. The alternative is that the ANC continues in power and destroys the city.

The DA’s handling of the 2018 drought in Cape Town has been lauded for how politicians and citizens can work together to avert disaster. The DA as a party and the City of Cape Town administration navigated the challenge with aplomb.

The people of Nelson Mandela Bay now face a similar challenge. The ANC in NMB has stolen from, lied to and defrauded its constituency for years before it was ousted in 2016. Since then, it has frustrated the work of successive coalition governments, even resorting to violence as displayed by one of its leaders, Andile Lungisa.

In many parts of that metro — and indeed in the greater Eastern Cape — service delivery has totally collapsed. Makhanda (whose name the ANC changed at vast expense while the municipality was broke), for example, has no steady supply of clean running water. Students at Rhodes University have to buy water. You must be a psychopath to think changing place names is more important than giving students clean running water.

While ANC leaders have played politics in NMB, the metro has failed to plug water leaks despite facing, on and off, seven years of drought. If the ANC stays in power in NMB the metro’s people will not have water to drink. That’s how bad the ANC has become. The ANC needs to be in the backbenches, far from power, and shorn of the ability to destabilise the city administration.

A reason that’s often touted for continuing with the ANC in power, is that if its current leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, is ousted then the country will be plunged into chaos. This is absolute rubbish. Chaos will only be unleashed if the people of SA keep the ANC in power and allow the dangerous, populist, no-rules Jacob Zuma clique of the party to return to office. Then, yes, we are in some trouble.

Fear of chaos if Ramaphosa leaves is a greater reason for booting the ANC out than it is for keeping him in his seat. The country cannot be held hostage by this ANC blackmail.