Simon Nare
Without any doubt the biggest loser in the 2024 National General Elections is none other than President Cyril Ramaphosa who will go down in history as the ANC leader who dragged the party support to 40% in South Africa.
With 99.57% votes counted, the ANC was leading with 40.20% followed by DA at 21.79% and MK Party lying third with 14.60%. A deal with either DA or MK would see the ANC forming a government but this will come at a cost.
Ramaphosa’s future also hangs in the balance as reports are circling that the party’s officials are due to meet to discuss the dismal election performance and his future as party leader.
It is also rumored that even though ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane has publicly come out batting for Ramaphosa at the Results Operating Center, knives are already out for their president.
The MK Party on the other hand through its leader Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma, has ruled out negotiating with the “ANC of Ramaphosa”. This complicates any chances the governing party has to negotiate with its splinter party.
The second biggest loser title goes to EFF leader Julius Malema who is cruising towards a reputation of being the most radical left, loved by the social media, fills up the stadiums to the brim but when it comes to the polls he falls short of getting the important numbers.
Malema might have to deal with the fact that the path to topple the DA as the official opposition has taken a gigantic two steps back as the MK Party has taken over as the third biggest in the country. This further condemns Malema’s dream to be president of the country.
This will be a difficult blow for the fighters given how they burst into the political scene with their gung-ho approach and challenged the status quo as they won over millions of sympathizers who found resonance with their hardline left policies.
Many would argue that with all the hard work the fighters had put in, where could it have gone wrong when it was looking so rosy? It all looked easy, the DA in the recent past was rampantly alienating and getting rid of its black leaders, an opportunity for the Red Berets to cash in on the numbers.
Not only has the Red Berets been knocked out of the third position by Zuma but they have been pushed out as official opposition in Mpumalanga as well. And in KZN the Zuma party is firmly in charge with 100% voting completed, the MK was far ahead with 45.35%, followed by 18.07% IFP and ANC third on 16.99%.
Central to the EFF decline is the party’s open border policy which has infuriated many South Africans who are totally against the influx of illegal immigrants. The party made a mess of it when Malema publicly said he didn’t need the “xenophobic” votes.
That has backfired in an explosive fashion at the polls and some have reminded him on social media that next time he should put the interests of South Africans first before appeasing the African brothers.
A revisit to the 2019 local government elections reveals that even Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA outperformed the EFF in Soweto when the former businessman campaigned on the anti-illegal-immigrants ticket.
It’s only in the eleventh hour during the Tshela Thupa Rally in Seshego that the commander-in-chief, as he is called, somewhat softened on this stance but it looks like this was too little too late.
Zuma on the other hand in his campaigns for the MK, made sure to stay away from the burning issue of illegal immigrants.
Comebacks are not easy in politics and if you are gone you stay gone and especially in this country where people seem to follow parties or politicians the same way they follow their football clubs.
The so-called Zuma tsunami in politics drives the point home.
And it is what the Zuma impact is doing to the ANC that is looming large in these elections and seemingly the former president used his political prowess to bring down the party he led in KZN and Gauteng.
The ANC has been hanging with a thread in their control over Gauteng but it appears they just needed a nudge from the MK to topple over. With 100% votes completed, the ANC had fallen to 34.79% in Gauteng followed by the DA at 27.50% and EFF at 12.91%.
And with Msholozi now wielding so much power, a difficult path faces Ramaphosa and Malema. Ramaphosa can either take the path towards total destruction and go to bed with the DA or swallow his pride and go cap in hand to Zuma.
Going to bed with the DA may further alienate ANC voters and going with Zuma may cost him his job and further entrench Zuma as the hero who would have rescued the ANC. The former president is on record to say he established MK to reconfigure the liberation and if he achieves that with the power he now has, he would be regarded as the Messiah.
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