The 2024 watershed election and its ramifications are upon us – and boy – there is pain, sorrow, face-saving and delight, depending on which side of the fence one resides. Tlou Morale looks back on a nail-biting election and what it means for the country’s future.
The ‘so-called leaders’ of our glorious movement have been humbled to finally realise and admit – if they are incorrigible – that former president Jacob Zuma is a powerful political tactician and masterful powerhouse whose organising prowess and charisma is way advanced, and in a class of its own, than that if any of the entire cohort currently gossiping behind the Luthuli House walls.
The self-assured hubris amongst ANC kleptocrats has been shaken and no amount of empty spin and gibberish would excuse the fact that ANC voters have seen through their deception, and they now as a result have blood on their hands for sending the glorious movement to the dogs and single-handedly delivered the Mass Democratic Revolution’s first ever under 51% electoral defeat.
The leadership collective of the ANC failed in 2024 and succeeded in doing something that no other generation has managed in the 112-odd years of the life of the movement. The leadership has desecrated the hallowed shrine on which ANC ancestors and well-wishers gather to pray for national blessings. This leadership has failed millions of South Africans whose hope for social and economic freedom, justice and the desire to attain human dignity in the land of their forebearers has been trivialised and mocked by the national office bearers and their stooges. The results of this election emanate from the holier-than though stance of people like Gwede Mantashe, Fikile Mbalula, Pravin Gordhan, Nomvula Mokonyane, President Cyril Ramaphosa and many others who chose to urinate on the cries and humble please of the people they consider only good enough to be voting fodder and not reasoning human beings.
These results must be seen as a rebuke of the leadership’s narcissistic outlook on national challenges and denial of the population’s pains and challenges, while only they see themselves as possessing the brains to understand what needs to be done with the body politic in the land of our birth. Ask yourself how many people raised their concerns about how former president Zuma was dealt with by the entire judiciary, led by the apex court. He was imprisoned unjustly in the minds of many ANC voters with the judicial arm with notable names used to castrate his right to fair trial and deny him judicial recourse. There was an outcry by many that Lady Justice seemed to have lost her impartiality when it came to dealing with Zuma. As you all know, he was sentenced to prison with no trial and recourse, and the right to freedom that he spent his entire life fighting for – for all citizens – was taken away from him. There was an outcry of emotions and humble pleas for the state to change course, but it appeared that only the learned views of those from Stellenbosch, Kirstenbosch, Waterkloof and Sandton made sense to the powers that be. The ANC voters were kicked to the kerb and denigrated as backward, dirty and lacking the mental capacity to contribute to the direction that the public sphere should take. Fast forward to poll day – May 29 – the same dirty voters were expected to be freed from their pigsties to come cast their stinking votes for the ‘leadership collective,’ fortunately the true democratic masters of the Republic were not to be fooled again by the state and they remembered amongst the many sins of incumbency of the ANC government that they were treated with disdain on the Zuma incarceration debacle, and subsequent judicial drama that ensued to curtail his human rights, including the unjust denial of his right to stand in elections, emanating from his arbitrary imprisonment by the apex court.
The leadership and its anti-ANC sponsors colluded to use state resources to shape the landscape that sped the disintegration and unravelling of the electoral majority of the people’s movement. One wonders whether the hush-toned whispers that the vote-humbled leadership that occupied Luthuli House before May 29 has a mandate to destroy the ANC have some truth in them. That question remains, real or imagined. What is evident and a fact though is that this collective succeeded – intended or unwittingly to mute the mighty majority of the ANC to below not only 51%, but a meagre 40,31%. I harbour no desire to speak about the DA whose majority votes come from the hardworking white minority population and other insignificant parties, with no disrespect intended to their electoral base, but mention must be made of the Patriotic Alliance for a stellar performance that was not expected this turn. Cde Gayton Mackenzie and the team have outdone themselves. The EFF, a party that had been a game changer of note ever since its establishment – thanks to Gwede Mantashe and his cronies’ bungling that led to the dissolution of the progressive ANCYL – has now been relegated to fourth position, thanks to the birth and entry into our body politic of the uMkhonto WeSizwe party led by former President Zuma. MK now wields around 13 to 14% of the national vote, and rides the crest of being the majority party in KwaZulu-Natal, and might I add that there is no tribal proclivity or alliance about that but just politics and the people’s desire to finally show Luthuli House who the movement belongs to – the people, not arrogant politicians. With the Independent Electoral Commission having declared the 2024 results, the ANC sits at 40.18% with a massive, yet reduced 6,459,683 of votes.
The DA is second with 3,505,735 votes, equalling 21.81%. New kid on the block MK has garnered an impressive 2,344,309 votes, affording it 14.58% of the national vote. Julius Malema trails former President Jacob Zuma’s party with the EFF sitting in fourth position with 1,529,961 votes and 9.52% overall. Joining the EFF in the single-digit-support parties is the IFP with 3.85%, the PA 2.06, followed by VF PLUS with 1.36%, and Herman Mashaba’s ACTIONSA with 1.2%.
What this election result tells us is that the ANC is not as invincible as its current leaders seem to think. This is so especially at a time when a breed of charismatic, people-centred politicians seem to be missing within the ranks of the once glorious movement. With no outright majority, the ANC and South Africans are forced by the natural flow of circumstances to embrace coalitions and the inevitable ‘return of Jesus’.
This then begs the question: Will the comrades make this possible and advance the similar tenets contained in their manifestos or are they too proud and selfish to embrace unity and progress for the downtrodden African child? The horse-trading needs to happen. People must resign or be fired, and take responsibility for bringing the movement where it is.
Some must be brought to the guillotine of public judgment to apologise for subjecting the movement and its people to this uncanny predicament. Some must accept the fate of fading to their twilight away from politics and blue lights because they failed, disgraced the people and have nothing to offer. Many must strive to reclaim the judiciary from the claws of partisanship and loyalty to certain interests, other than justice and fairness for all.
of votes. The DA is second with 3,505,735 votes, equalling 21.81%. Photo: DA
If the ANC chooses the DA to appease the owners of capital and cheerleaders of the ‘world’s most progressive constitution’ that brought us the Gini Coefficient ranking our country enjoys, the voters will remember it in 2029 and there will never be a coming back from that.
If they choose either MK or EFF or both, cheerleaders of the constitution will obviously be aggrieved, but the ANC as a leader of society will keep the voters – thus as Nicollo Machiavelli put it, endear itself to the people who will protect it, and not need fortresses as protection against the people. And as the doors of power shut the voters out and afford leaders to lead coalition talks behind closed doors, the voters will expect those leaders to rise above petty squabbles and deliver a government that shall truly be, by the people, for the people.
There is a window for redemption for some, and the voters who will now be locked outside while ‘VIP’ politicians decide what to do with their ‘dirty votes’ will be watching. And, this is an opportunity for real renewal as the electorate wants it and not as the ANC has imagined it.
