Mokonyane: Last-minute initiatives like Nasi Ispan were behind ANC’s electoral decline

The party’s first deputy secretary general said such interventions should be initiated ‘four years and nine months before the next elections’

Scepticism about the timing of last-minute initiatives such as the Nasi ispani jobs initiative, improved service delivery and a halt to load-shedding ahead of 29 May general elections contributed to the ANC losing votes, said the party’s first deputy secretary general, Nomvula Mokonyane.

She told journalists on the sidelines of the ANC’s national executive meeting (NEC) in Ekurhuleni on Friday that part of the discussions were around “voter suspicion” sparked by the introduction of the initiatives so close to the election date.

The ANC is gathering in Ekurhuleni to do a post-mortem of its worst electoral performance since 1994. The party’s support plunged below 50%, ending its long-standing parliamentary majority.

“Delayed interventions have also been seen to be very suspicious by our voters. Nasi Ispani, the transformer programme — voters [were)] actually saying ‘why now, why on the 11th hour?’,” she said.

Voters believed the ANC had introduced the programmes just to woo them, with the intention of shutting them down immediately after elections were done, Mokonyane added.

She said the government had to respond to speculation that the suspension of rolling electricity blackouts this year, after months of intense load-shedding previously, was meant to avoid hurting the ANC’s electoral chances.

In Gauteng, had Premier Panyaza Lesufi faced accusations of electioneering from opposition parties who said his Nasi Ispani initiative was also meant to woo voters towards the ANC.

Lesufi had also promised Gauteng residents that he would cancel the debt of defaulting Eskom customers in the run-up to the elections.

Mokonyane said one of the lessons learnt was that “where there is a need to intervene, do it when it’s four years and nine months before the next elections. We need solutions that incorporate everybody and ensure that those interventions are sustained.”

This forced the ANC to bring on board nine other parties to form a government of national unity (GNU), including the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Inkatha Freedom Party, Rise Mzansi, Good, Patriotic Alliance, Al Jama-ah, Freedom Front Plus, Pan Africanist Congress and the United Democratic Movement.

The NEC’s three-day gathering will be followed by a three-day lekgotla to be attended by the ANC’s alliance partners the South African Communist Party and labour federation Cosatu, as well as party veterans including former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.

The rise of breakaway parties from the ANC such as former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party seems to have affected its support base, according to an 18-page election assessment by the former director general in the presidency, Joel Netshitenzhe.

“The emergence of the MK party as the largest party in KwaZulu-Natal, and its tallies in Mpumalanga and Gauteng broadly mirror locations with an ethnic identity similar to that of its leader. In the remaining six provinces, the MK party mustered one representative each in four of them,” Netshitenzhe said in the document.

He added that the voters who abstained were discouraged by the ANC’s poor delivery of services.

“Millions who abstained  from voting have lost confidence in the ANC as the pre-eminent organisational platform through which to attain this objective,” he said.

Ntshitenzhe said the lack of confidence in the ANC reduced the voter turnout to 58.64% in 2024, compared with 89% in 1999, 77% in 2004 and 2009, 74% in 2014 and 66% in 2019.

The document was presented to the NEC members before Thursday’s session, at which the party aimed to formulate a plan to claw back its electoral losses.

On Friday, Mokonyane took the opportunity to assert the ANC’s authority over the unity government to “silence dissenting voices that the DA is in charge”.

“Who leads the GNU? The ANC leads. We have invited everybody, and we refuse to be put together with the DA,” Mokonyane said.

“We were always conscious that we have a bigger constituency represented in parliament, and that is what we will be working on.”

Acting ANC spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi said the discussions would “continue to consider the election outcomes and take a deep dive into pieces of data from VD [voter district] level towards the local municipalities”.

“Then we will come up with a concrete plan for structures after assessing the state of the organisation,” he added.