The former ruling party says it appreciates that it needs to address its shortfalls with urgency.
Acting national spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi said the lekgotla which followed its lengthy national executive committee meetings this week agrees that the ANC is good at recognising problems and talking about them, but voters criticise its lack of action on policy items — with calls for consequence management, including putting heads on the chopping block.
“You can no longer be lacklustre when you have lost your majority. There are things the ANC has known are a problem but [where it] could have easily been complacent about its response. The ANC can no longer afford complacency, the electorate is showing us the door.
“They have said to us, act on these things or you are out. The urgency of the situation arises out of the reality that the ANC is losing elections. We have no choice but to move with speed and do things better.”
For instance one of the macro things we said that in 2016 people voted at local government level in response to national issues. What we are seeing now is that people voted at national level on issues to respond to issues at local government level.
— Zuko Godlimpi, acting national spokesperson
The party reported it has taken stock of the impact of the relationship between local governance “sore points” and its potential impact on the national platform, vowing to pay particular attention to the local sphere.
With a local government intervention not being a new pledge, Godlimpi conceded the party may not have played open cards about its initiatives and the impact of those.
“The ANC has recognised that we need to do something about the local government issue. Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has reportedly proposed that the NEC adopt a local government intervention task team as part of that barometer, but we did not put out what it does.”
Mbalula is said to have first introduced the idea in 2016.
Alongside the coalitions task team, the local government intervention task team — led by former Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau — focuses on problematic municipalities.
Godlimpi explained the realisation there was a need for the party's headquarters to have a bird’s-eye view on the local government level resulted from electoral outcome studies dating back to 2016.
“The intersection between national government and local government elections sentiments became much more weaponised in 2016, and the ANC recognised this.
“We said we need to do something to understand why people are starting to vote the way they are voting. The rule of thumb is, when we do elections analysis and strategy elaboration, there is no way of saying we have figured it out and we are done. We have to repeatedly assess data and find ways to respond. Sometimes we might misread it, for instance one of the macro things we said that in 2016 people voted at local government level in response to national issues.
“What we are seeing now is that people voted at national level on issues to respond to issues at local government level.”
“The barometer is there, the difference is that when the SG announced it, people thought it will be flighted somewhere for everybody to see. But it is there at Luthuli [House].”
Godlimpi said the party would be making use of voter trends to shape its electoral messaging ahead of the upcoming local government polls in 2026 and national and provincial elections in 2029.
“We have got to find a systematic way of understanding the message, on a continuous basis and not a one-off thing. When we move from here to 2029, for instance, we will be relying on the experience of 2026 and how voting patterns unfold. Hence we say now that the 2024 election was fought at local government.
“It does not mean that by 2029, the tendency will still be the same. Voters are dynamic, they react to the environment as it changes, and they emphasise on certain areas of policy consternation. We could get to 2029 and the election could be different. Now it was electricity, because load-shedding was a big national issue. We could get to 2029 and things might have changed.”
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