ANC Election Manifesto Is Devoid of Credibility

Expecting upliftment and political success despite a record of unreliable services, deteriorating infrastructure, financial bankruptcy, and corruption is like promising a moribund cancer patient the prospect of captaining the local soccer team.

For that is the context in which President Ramaphosa has pitched the ANC’s municipal election manifesto. Nonetheless, he calls on his comrades to exhibit accountability and zero tolerance on corruption – attributes which have been increasingly absent over the past 25 years and which are conspicuously lacking in Ramaphosa’s own case.

In that local government is seen as an orchard of accessible, low-hanging fruit, it has been the most convenient to exploit and to loot. Political analyst Sandile Swana identifies councillors as well-positioned conduits in exploiting tenders and budgets and becoming guardians of public resources for personal and party ends. As such, municipal government facilitates a ready means of enrichment.

Not surprisingly, it follows that political killings are on the rise. In 2025, there were 121 political killing case dockets. Given the conditions where crime apparently pays, elections are not only exercises in democracy. They are also ruthless contests to retain or gain access to the low-hanging fruit.

Despite what the playing fields of municipal election campaigns have become and despite the proven inability of B-BBEE to alleviate mass poverty, Ramaphosa insists on more of that policy when the obvious panacea is a policy of merit. As journalist Nomvula Mabuza wrote on July 14, 2025, “We cannot build national character on the lowest common denominator.”

Yet that is exemplified by the Madlanga hearings and the almost daily disclosures of new financial mismanagement, such as the fruitless waste of R19 billion by the Passenger Rail Agency, the R2 billion stolen from Tembisa Hospital, and the R5 billion maladministration of student funding.

During Women’s Month a year ago, ANC veteran Naledi Pandor expressed her dismay at the erosion of values and widespread corruption within the ANC. “We have lost our glory. Let’s not pretend about it. The people are looking at us with disdain…” (*The Mercury, *August 26, 2025).

Pandor’s diagnosis of the cancer within the ANC renders Ramaphosa’s 2026 ANC election manifesto devoid of credibility.

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