The ANC recently announced that it will, for the first time since being voted into power in 1994, go outside its ranks to look for credible and “clean” mayoral candidates ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
This, simply put, means that there might be instances wherein if the ANC wins a particular municipality, the mayor might be a non-card-carrying member of the ANC.
While this appears noble at face value, in an organisation structured like the ANC in its current form, it is certainly going to backfire very badly and be the source of instability in municipalities where the ANC is represented by mayors who are non-members.
Of course, the ambitious new system is based on the old ANC, where being an ANC member was a function of genuine activism rather than a function of a political career or easy route to becoming a fly-by-night millionaire.
Such were the good old days when the ANC had just come into power and sent its own cadres all over the world and inside the country to skill themselves up to take their rightful place in government.
New cadres’ influence
In fact, most ANC cadres had been skilled before the democratic breakthrough because politics at the time was never a guarantee of comfortable livelihoods.
It was a time of oppression where the genuine hunger to free the majority people was the driving force behind political activism of every ANC cadre.
In the formative years of the democratic breakthrough, the ANC had some of the most educated and politically disciplined people among its membership.
Their participation in politics and government was mostly inspired by the passion to serve with financial inducement seen only as a bonus, not the primary reason to seek political office.
But most importantly, that cohort of cadres could still have sustainable livelihoods outside the perimeters of the ANC-controlled state because of their educational qualifications.
And then 2007 happened, and there was a sudden influx of a new but problematic cadre to the once glorious ANC.
This new cadre was in politics squarely for survival and could barely make a living outside the system of political patronage that became the state after the 2009 national and provincial elections.
The decay had started; politics was now a matter of life and death for many.
Through positions within the ANC, which remains the most dominant organisation in the country, albeit its natural death, be it at the branch, regional, provincial or national level, this new cadre could influence tenders and get their cut on the other side.
Many know this as the javelin phenomenon.
Patronage-driven system
If not influencing tenders and state contracts for their cronies, these new cadres can influence the appointment of their friends and families into strategic positions within the state.
State-owned entities also became the playing field of nepotism and manipulation of tenders for self-enrichment, with small but cunning patronage networks forming everywhere.
All one needed was to be elected to be an ANC leader at any level. That is the modus operandi to this day, and it is now fully entrenched.
If the current ANC NEC, which approved this new approach of widening the net to outside the former liberation movement, thinks this attempt at renewal will be accepted by all, they are in for the biggest shock of their lives.
The beneficiaries of the current patronage-driven system, of which the NEC members themselves benefit, are going to fight tooth and nail against the outsiders.
The gravy train is already congested as things are, and there is war between card-carrying members among themselves over state resources.
You must look no further than ANC branch general meetings where literal “blood on the floor” battles are now a common occurrence.
Moreover, ANC councilors have normalised voting against their own party mayors who are ANC card-carrying members like them.
Votes of no confidence
Maluti-a-Phofung in the Free State is the poster child of this phenomenon, which even gave birth to MAP16 when all those ANC councilors who voted against their mayor were expelled, and they continue to haunt that dysfunctional municipality to this day.
Now you can imagine all ANC members in a specific municipality who might have been lining up for years to become a mayor, only for the organisation to go outside.
That, my friend, is a recipe for disaster, and that mayor will never have peace while surrounded by ANC aggrieved card-carrying members to whom political office is the only way of climbing the socio-economic ladder.
If you thought the instability in multi-party coalition municipalities was bad enough, an ANC mayor who is not a member surrounded by card-carrying member councilors will make that look like a Sunday school picnic.
Votes of no confidence against mayors in these municipalities are likely to be more famous than Musa Khawula’s suicide-bombing celebrity blogging style.
And ANC councilors will vote to oust these mayors from outside the ANC but governing through their party platform.
Like wolves, modern-day ANC members hunt like a pack because an elevation of one of their own is Christmas for everyone in the patronage network that ensues and the gravy train that starts moving on the rails.
In such conditions, an outsider can simply never be trusted nor survive for too long.
Maybe creating a new cadre first in its entire membership would have been the correct first step for the ANC if true renewal was the intention.
But then again, the custodians of this resolution (ANC NEC) are themselves part of the problem and products of the post-2007 patronage networks that have brought the once glorious movement to its knees.
- The ANC will, for the first time since 1994, consider non-members as mayoral candidates for the 2026 local government elections to find credible and "clean" leaders.
- This move is seen as risky and likely to cause instability, as ANC members vying for mayoral positions may resist non-member mayors, leading to internal conflicts.
- The ANC's current political culture is heavily rooted in patronage and factionalism, especially since 2007, where political positions are influenced by personal gain and nepotism.
- The entrenched patronage system has led to violent internal battles, councilors voting against their own party mayors, and widespread factionalism within municipalities like Maluti-a-Phofung.
- Without first reforming and creating a genuinely new cadre within the ANC, appointing outsiders as mayors is expected to lead to further conflict and instability rather than meaningful renewal.
While this appears noble at face value, in an organisation structured like the ANC in its current form, it is certainly going to backfire very badly and be the source of instability in municipalities where the ANC is represented by mayors who are non-members.
Of course, the ambitious new system is based on the old ANC, where being an ANC member was a function of genuine activism rather than a function of a political career or easy route to becoming a fly-by-night millionaire.
Such were the good old days when the ANC had just come into power and sent its own cadres all over the world and inside the country to skill themselves up to take their rightful place in government.
In fact, most ANC cadres had been skilled before the democratic breakthrough because politics at the time was never a guarantee of comfortable livelihoods.
It was a time of oppression where the genuine hunger to free the majority people was the driving force behind political activism of every ANC cadre.
In the formative years of the democratic breakthrough, the ANC had some of the most educated and politically disciplined people among its membership.
But most importantly, that cohort of cadres could still have sustainable livelihoods outside the perimeters of the ANC-controlled state because of their educational qualifications.
If not influencing tenders and state contracts for their cronies, these new cadres can influence the appointment of their friends and families into strategic positions within the state.
State-owned entities also became the playing field of nepotism and manipulation of tenders for self-enrichment, with small but cunning patronage networks forming everywhere.
All one needed was to be elected to be an ANC leader at any level.
If the current ANC NEC, which approved this new approach of widening the net to outside the former liberation movement, thinks this attempt at renewal will be accepted by all, they are in for the biggest shock of their lives.
You must look no further than ANC branch general meetings where literal “blood on the floor” battles are now a common occurrence.
Moreover, ANC councilors have normalised voting against their own party mayors who are ANC card-carrying members like them.
Maluti-a-
Now you can imagine all ANC members in a specific municipality who might have been lining up for years to become a mayor, only for the organisation to go outside.
If you thought the instability in multi-party coalition municipalities was bad enough, an ANC mayor who is not a member surrounded by card-carrying member councilors will make that look like a
Votes of no confidence against mayors in these municipalities are likely to be more famous than Musa
Like wolves, modern-day ANC members hunt like a pack because an elevation of one of their own is Christmas for everyone in the patronage network that ensues and the gravy train that starts moving on the rails.
In such conditions, an outsider can simply never be trusted nor survive for too long.
Maybe creating a new cadre first in its entire membership would have been the correct first step for the ANC if true renewal was the intention.
But then again, the custodians of this resolution (ANC NEC) are themselves part of the problem and products of the post-2007 patronage networks that have brought the once glorious movement to its knees.
