Steps ANC must take to save itself.

Credit: (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

At dusk on Sunday December 17, as the ANC tied itself in knots about conference credentials and leadership nominations, a senior member of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) huddled with a handful of journalists at the Nasrec conference centre in Johannesburg.

He wanted to know how they viewed the presidential race, and what each outcome would mean for the ANC’s prospects in 2019. When it came time to give his own predictions, the NEC member explained that he was not a committed Cyril Ramaphosa supporter but believed that, if the ANC chose him over his opponent, the party would “get something close to its two-thirds majority back” in the next election.

Ramaphosa’s win has since come to pass but most journalists and other pundits remain unconvinced about that 2019 election prediction. Not least because, when the votes were finally tallied the next day, Ramaphosa’s victory seemed so … partial.

The evenly split top six officials structure makes even the day-to-day running of party matters, let alone long-term strategic decision-making, a matter of complex give and take. But will it make taking the corrective action the ANC needs between now and 2019 impossible, as most pundits seemed to conclude in the initial reaction to the leadership elections?

By Vukani Mde.

Full story at Mail & Guardian.