Angry ANC leaders in Gauteng are blaming rampant corruption, the legacy of the Jacob Zuma era and unhappiness over e-tolls for their near loss of the province.
Speaking to the Sunday Times after the ANC hung on to Gauteng by the narrowest of margins, a leading member of the provincial executive committee (PEC) said Gauteng was being punished for the ANC's leadership failures at national level.
"We are harmed by national politics," the PEC member said.
"[Former president] Zuma might not be here, but the reality is that people view his administration as a minus rather than a plus. Bathabile Dlamini is a minus, Nomvula Mokonyane is a minus," said the source, referring to two of Zuma's cabinet appointments - both of whom are still ministers.
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"We are harmed by national dynamics because they happen in the eyes of the people of Gauteng. That is why we are being punished."The PEC member said the ANC had retained the province only because of its strong organisational capacity on the ground."We must also appreciate we are lucky. The ANC had factions, infighting, rampant corruption … We come from a history of divisions, of open corruption, uncertainty, unqualified people occupying positions."Another provincial leader said unhappiness over e-tolls had again hurt the ANC, having cost the party two metros in the 2016 local government elections.The party's head of elections in Gauteng, Lebogang Maile, said the ANC in the province - which won only 46% of the vote in the 2016 local government elections - had done extremely well to obtain more than 2-million votes this week.
"The brand ANC has been damaged as well. There's a lot of issues, you can't have a quick-fix solution, you can't say you have Cyril [Ramaphosa] therefore you'll win. You have to work, it's a process.
"But look at our numbers, we have delivered more votes to the ANC nationally. We are delivering more than 2-million votes. That's big … It's not child's play."
Maile said the ANC in Gauteng had a lot to celebrate, despite having won only a slim majority of 50.1%.
"One thing we have been able to prove is we govern better than the DA. When you look at the results and analyse them, if these were local government elections, we would have won Tshwane and Joburg back," he said.
DA leaders in the province acknowledged in private that the party had fared badly, lamenting its failure to achieve the 30% support target it had set itself. The party ended with 27.45% of the vote, and the EFF 14.6%.
One DA leader in Gauteng, who did not want to be named, said the party would have to urgently analyse what went wrong.
"You can't lose support in a province that you were expected to win," he said.
"We were expected to take Gauteng, but as things stand we are losing support. Heads will have to roll and people will have to account for some of the decisions they took."
He said the ANC had even poached votes from previous DA strongholds in Johannesburg's northern suburbs.
DA Gauteng leader John Moodey said the party had gone out to all communities to canvass support.
"We were offering the people of Gauteng a better alternative to the ANC … it came as quite a surprise to us because we believe that we did enough within our traditional support base to maintain that support. Perhaps we underestimated the mood of the people, especially the Afrikaner group," he said.
Another member of the DA national campaign team criticised those in the party who had focused on attracting white voters.
"Why in the dying days were the fossils rolled out?" he asked, referring to campaign appearances by Tony Leon and Helen Zille.
"Because they wanted to focus on the white vote. That vote was already gone, it was clear even in by-elections," he said...