Pretoria - Respected political analysts in the capital have warned of tough electioneering campaigns for the ANC ahead of the municipal polls on August 3.
The warning comes as political riots continued to rock different parts of the city on Tuesday.
ANC supporters are up in arms over the decision to appoint former public works minister Thoko Didiza as the mayoral candidate instead of the members proposed to the provincial executive committee.
Roland Henwood, University of Pretoria political scientist, said there were chances for the ANC to suffer a huge blow in the elections contest.
Such a possibility could manifest if its supporters staying away from the polls or vote against it, he said.
But Henwood said, in the same breath, that ANC supporters may be reluctant to vote for any other party despite having vowed not to vote for the ANC.
“We have heard ANC members in the past saying that they won’t vote in the elections, but they had not opted to vote for another party because they were unhappy with the ANC,” he said. Should supporters decide otherwise, Henwood said, the situation would negatively impact on the ANC.
The political upheaval could partly be attributed to a fight over control of state resources by both factions, he said.
He expressed concern about the type of democracy characterised by people who supported a leader because they hoped to benefit from his or her appointment to a position of power.
Henwood likened the ANC’s decision to appoint former public works minister Thoko Didiza as a compromise candidate to the one to appoint the 2010 Soccer World Cup boss Danny Jordan as the mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.
Violence broke out because of dissatisfaction over who should become the mayor of Tshwane if the ANC won the elections.
Amid threats by protesters that there won’t be elections if incumbent Kgosientso Ramokgopa could not be retained as mayor, Henwood said the situation posed no immediate threat to the preparations for elections.
“It is an internal political issue, but the IEC will have to take note of it,” he said. If anything, he said, the ANC’s internal battles meant opposition parties may perform better in the elections.
Professor Herbert Maseremule, of the Tshwane University of Technology, warned that if the ANC was not careful it might “hand over the city to the DA on a silver platter”.
He said the manner in which the ANC went about taking a decision about mayoral candidates was puzzling. “They thought they were salvaging the situation, but they actually exacerbated it,” he said.
Party members may be reluctant to campaign for the ANC because of the decision to have a compromise candidate. Chaos would definitely have an impact on the ANC’s election campaign because of the two warring factions, he said.
He said the deep-rooted problem of factionalism had always existed in the city. “As the ideal solution, the ANC would have re-engaged branch members about the possible names of mayoral candidates behind the proposed ones,” he said.
He called for the ANC to make a thorough and deeper analysis of the situation.
The IFP in Gauteng expressed shock at the ongoing violent protests. Party caucus leader Bonginkosi Dhlamini said: “These protests demonstrate a lack of leadership in the ruling party.
“They are symptomatic of the factions in the government that are now compromising service delivery. Also, they are an indication that people have lost trust in the government and the ruling party.”
He appealed to people not be despondent and lose hope. “The destruction of property will not solve their problem, but the real power that is in their hands, is their vote that they should exercise to fire those who they don’t trust anymore and hire those who they trust,” he said.
The Gauteng Civic Association warned the ANC that its decision to “impose” a mayoral candidate on city residents may lead to “innocent lives being lost and the burning of schools in the townships”.
Themba Ncalo, the association’s secretary-general, said the violence exposed weaknesses in the police who were apparently not visible when protesters looted foreign-owned shops.
Khumbuza Bavu, United Democratic Movement Tshwane convener said: “It is high time that citizens realise that the ruling party has never taken community protests seriously. We are asking ourselves why they would think they will be taken seriously now.”
The capital’s DA mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga said Didiza’s first act as mayoral candidate had been to go into hiding, making no attempts to engage with those she has been tipped to govern.
Pretoria News