Welcome to this week’s edition of Mopani Sting.
The African National Congress is in total candidate chaos across the country, and the Mopani District is caught right in the middle of the storm.
The Independent Electoral Commission closed official candidate registrations on Friday at 5:00 PM. Yet, the ANC has still not announced its official mayoral candidates for the country or for Mopani.
This total silence comes right after the complete damp squib of announcing mayoral candidate shortlists in Sandton a week ago. That event was supposed to show strength, but it ended up showing a party that cannot make up its mind.
To make matters worse, the ANC held a Special National Executive Committee meeting to consider matters pertaining to the list process. Nobody outside top party circles knows what that political gobbledegook actually means, but one thing is clear: the process is completely broken.
As if score-settling and list delays were not enough own goals, the party has now condoned candidates who do not even have a Matric certificate. The ANC is actually allowing these uneducated candidates a full year after the elections to scramble around and try to pass their Matric.
With mayoral names still unconfirmed, the political future of wannabe Mopani District Executive Mayor Dagma Mamanyoha hangs completely in the balance.
While Mamanyoha waits anxiously for a final decision from Luthuli House, his loyal ANC Women’s League paratroopers are out in full force. They are chanting his cause, marching, and demanding that upper structures honor traditional succession and hand him the district mayoral chain.
WHAT CAN THE ANC SALVAGE FROM ITS OWN WRECKAGE?
The current local election chaos is just the latest chapter in a long downward spiral for the governing party.
The ANC is still recovering from its massive electoral disaster in the recent Provincial and National elections, where it lost its absolute majority. Out of sheer desperation to hold onto power, blue lights, and the plush perks of high office, the party rushed into a national coalition government.
To stay in power, the ANC had to form a Government of National Unity with funny and strange bedfellows, including the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, Freedom Front Plus, Patriotic Alliance, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, and the GOOD party.
Now, as local government elections draw closer, ordinary voters are asking a simple question: If the ANC cannot even handle its own candidate list process or pick a mayor for Mopani on time, what can it possibly salvage from its own political wreckage?
Stay tuned to Mopani Sting for next week’s update on the region’s top political drama.