Much has been said, inside and outside political corridors, about the ANC’s electoral drubbing in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
But very little, if anything at all, is ever said to give historical context for how the ANC found itself in that position.
The elephant in the room is one Jacob Zuma, the former President of the ANC who, in fact, delivered the killer blow that brought the ANC to its knees.
Final nail in the ANC coffin
Zuma hammered the final nail in the ANC coffin from the outside. However, the steady decline of the ANC at the polls was always centred around him while he was inside the ANC.
For political convenience and other factors, people who had nothing to do with the election’s loss that put the ANC at 40% support nationally were blamed.
The ANC provincial executive committees in KZN and Gauteng were the sacrificial lambs.
Let us seek to decode what I have termed “the Zuma phenomenon” and its impact on the ANC losing legitimacy with the electorate over the years.
It starts in 2007 at the ANC Polokwane national conference, where Zuma was given the nod to the summit of the party’s leadership as president.
Two years later, in the 2009 national and provincial elections, the ANC support at the polls would start a steady yet permanent decline.
Up to last year’s fatal blow to the ANC’s strong grip on state power, the common denominator throughout has been one man – Zuma.
Some will argue that blaming one man is too simplistic. But I counter that ignoring the central role played by this one man is narrow.
The Zuma phenomenon
There can be no understanding of the ANC’s dwindling legitimacy in society without understanding the Zuma phenomenon.
Since 2009, the ANC votes declined due to internal rifts, economic performance and the perception of corruption and maladministration.
So, what happened leading up to the 2024 elections?
The heavily contested 2007 ANC Polokwane conference of the president against his deputy president started the slow but painful decline of the ANC voting power.
The aftermath of the 2007 conference led to a splinter group of disgruntled ANC leaders who formed COPE.
In the 2009 national elections COPE subsequently received 1.3 million votes from the ANC’s voter share.
The common denominator – Zuma
In 2012, Julius Malema was expelled from the ANC, leading to the formation of the EFF a year later.
During the 2012 ANC Mangaung national conference, the victors of the Polokwane conference split, and former allies contested each other again as the president and his deputy president.
The common denominator – Zuma, who effectively got his second term as ANC head.
In 2014, trade union federation Cosatu expelled its general secretary, followed by the split of industrial unions. This led to the formation of a rival labour federation.
This was at the height of Zuma’s strong grip on the mass democratic movement anchored on the tripartite alliance led by the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP.
Tripartite alliance
Cosatu was drifting away from Zuma, feeling betrayed that their support for him in 2007 was in vain, as the workers’ agenda was not the centre of government.
To weaken that voice and potential threat to your hold on power, break Cosatu up.
The 2017 ANC conference in Nasrec would further divide the party with the outgoing president backing a KZN candidate against his deputy president.
The deputy president won the contested conference, and the ANC were split down the middle on the eve of the 2019 national elections.
Numsa, a former Cosatu affiliate that was booted out alongside Vavi in 2014, formed a Workers Party to contest the 2019 elections, but failed to win a seat.
In 2019 the EFF, formed by a former president of the ANCYL, received over 1.8 million votes in national elections, also from the ANC share.
The MK Party
At the 2022 ANC elective conference, divisions deepened and were again marred by tensions of a seating president facing off against another KZN-backed candidate.
The ANC was again divided on the eve of the 2024 national elections.
A year later, MKP was formed by Zuma, who for the first time would fight the ANC from outside.
Building up to the May 2024 polls, Numsa called on its members to vote for MKP, which was formed in 2023 by Zuma and his backers in the ANC.
In those 2024 polls, the ANC lost a massive 2.5 million votes to the MKP.
KZN voters
The bulk of the votes of the MKP came from KZN. This was not unexpected for those who study history and its patterns. Because the ANC has never outrightly won KZN except when Zuma was ANC president and the first term of Ramaphosa’s presidency. The only time the Nkandla pensioner campaigned for the ANC post leading it.
The trend is very clear; it is a fact that the splits and voter decline of the ANC started after the Polokwane conference, where Zuma became president.
The Cope breakaway, Cosatu split, EFF split and, lately, the MKP, the common denominator is Zuma.
The ANC lost cumulatively about 4 million votes from 2009 to the 2024 national elections.
Without research, historical context and crunching the numbers, you can only do a thumb-suck analysis, which will take you nowhere.
But what is clear is that Zuma systematically destroyed the ANC and was at the heart of the haemorrhaging of the ANC voter base.
