ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and President Cyril Ramaphosa at Birchwood Hotel in Ekurhuleni. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen In a rare moment of candour, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party siphoned support from the ANC, directly contributing to its electoral decline and underscoring Zuma’s enduring role as a destabilising force within the movement. He also admitted that citizens’ anger over endemic corruption, unemployment and poor service delivery played a decisive role in the ANC’s record electoral loss.
Opening the ANC national general council (NGC) and delivering his political report as party president yesterday, Ramaphosa described the May 2024 general election, in which the ANC received 40% of the vote, as a severe strategic setback. “We received only 40% of the national vote. This was the first time since the advent of democracy that our share was less than 50%,” he said.
“While the ANC remains the most supported party, with almost twice as many votes as the next party, we suffered our greatest drop in support since 1994.” Ramaphosa noted the ANC lost its majority nationally and in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, in particular due to the MK party. “Among other things, the drop in support can be linked to the emergence of the MK party, dissatisfaction with the economy and unemployment, service delivery challenges, and anger about perceptions of widespread corruption. The record low voter turnout of 58% affected the ANC more than other parties,” he said.
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The MK party, established by Zuma on 16 December, 2023, contested the May 2024 election and rose to become the third-largest party in the country, winning KwaZulu-Natal and displacing the ANC. However, a coalition government involving the Inkatha Freedom Party, ANC, DA and National Freedom Party ousted MK, confining it to opposition benches in the provincial legislature. Experts such as Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast argued the ANC may never recover from the political oblivion it faces, while ANC stalwart Mathews Phosa predicted the party could drop to as low as 26% in future polls.
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