The ANC is on track for a huge hit in the Free State, the province where it was founded. But this is also the province where state capture allegations tainted the rule of Ace Magashule.
From its potholed roads to broken clinics and failing schools, the Free State has come to symbolise the human and political cost of state capture. With its historical links to the ANC’s foundation story, overwhelming victory in the province should be a given. Its capital, Bloemfontein, is, after all, the place where the party was born in 1912.
That’s 5% higher than what the CSIR predicts the ANC will get nationally. And the number is part of a national trend of voters turning away from the party. But the province has also been ground zero for corruption and state capture. During the Zuma presidency, the province’s premier — Ace Magashule — solidified his own power, with allegations constantly linking this process to a network of patronage built by the man who is now the ANC’s secretary-general.
Magashule helped to give Cyril Ramaphosa the presidency at the ANC’s electoral conference at Nascrec, in late 2017. In return, he became part of an uneasy Top 6 in the party. But since then there have been questions about his loyalty to the president, and to the attempts to clean up the governing party. In the eastern-most municipality of Phumela, for example, 25% of households don’t have access to electricity, 69% don’t have water inside their homes and 41% don’t have access to a flush toilet.
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