‘ANC will have to perform a miracle to get 50% of the vote in 2019’ – Matthews Phosa
ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu and former ANC premier for Mpumalanga Matthews Phosa have warned that the ruling party faces a tough election in 2019, with the latter calling for president Jacob Zuma to step down.
Speaking in an interview this past week, Mthembu – who leads the ANC’s majority in Parliament – said that “only a fool” would not recognise that the ANC was in trouble, looking at the 2019 elections.
“Never in my wildest dreams, or never in any of my nightmares, did I dream that we can lose Tshwane, we can lose Johannesburg,” he said.
If the ANC saw the same drop in the 2019 national elections that it saw in the municipal elections, the ruling party could soon become the opposition party, he warned.
“The ANC must approach this election as a step for self correction. We must come out ready to confront in a meaningful way the malaise that is facing our organisation.”
Without naming names, Mthembu said that some people within the party are more concerned with keeping power for themselves, and the party itself has become more about that type of power play, and less about helping the people.
When questioned about the ANC presidential election being held this year, Mthembu threw his support behind deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, saying that the role of the deputy president was created so that a person is ready to take over as president if needs be.
“As an ANC member, I put such a person (Ramaphosa) to be deputy because I was preparing that person to be president – case closed,” he said.
The ANC needs a miracle
In an opinion piece written in weekend papers, former ANC treasurer and Mpumalanga premier Matthews Phosa was far more critical of his party, and president Jacob Zuma in particular.
Phosa echoed Mthembu’s sentiments that the ruling party was in trouble for the 2019 elections, but held a less optimistic view:
“We will have to perform a miracle to get anywhere near 50% of the vote in 2019,” he said.
This, Phosa said, was because of a failure of leadership within the ANC, singling out president Jacob Zuma who refused to step down when many people, including himself, insisted that he should.
He said the party’s behaviour in Parliament – hurtling insults, refusing to have a moment of silence for those who died under the care of government, and laughing while chaos ensued – had led him to the point he had to speak out.
He said the time for the ANC to “debate in the darkness” was over, and that members should speak out.
“It is enough, I say, enough. The party that we all revered, loved, served, and some died for only exists in name today. Certainly we are not servants of the people, and certainly not the servants of all who live in South Africa,” Phosa said.
The ANC veteran called for president Zuma to step down:
“We will, as we did in August of last year in the municipal elections, pay a painful price at the polls for it in 2019.”
“Please, for once, serve your people, and go. Go now. If you don’t, history will judge you to be the chief architect of the destruction of the ANC,” he said.
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