The ANC’s decline in Gauteng could open the way for an ANC-EFF-PA coalition in the economic heartland. Will it go Lesufi’s way?
Illustrative image | Sources: Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi. | Johannesburg City Centre. | Johannesburg sign.
He is known to favour a coalition with two populist parties, which would make Gauteng the first province governed by South Africa’s populist surge should he succeed. Union Road in Kliptown, Soweto. Residents complain about litter sewage that runs across the road. to create distance with the EFF, Lesufi and Gauteng party bosses went ahead to boost coalition governments in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni even as service levels to old ANC supporters went through the floor.
With all the provincial power available to him to intervene and set things right, Lesufi has spent the past three years courting the EFF and allowing a minority party mayor like Kabelo Gwamanda of the three-seat Al Jama-ah party to run Johannesburg, rather than keeping his eye on the ball of city services.
The ANC’s early successes were also in Gauteng. Soweto was the first and most successful post-apartheid transformation. The provincial government recast the former dormitory town of apartheid’s worst planners as a modern city linked to the metropole. It was and is still outstanding. On the way in, streetlights are cut down in a line, like trees felled in a forest. Crime is out of control despite a sizeable police force and crime wardens. As dusk falls, dark comes fast. The roads are wrecked. On the way from Johannesburg to Emfuleni, expensive Gauteng Transport road infrastructure projects lie dormant and half-done.
Since he took over as premier, Lesufi has been trialling a very different style of politics from his predecessor. David Makhura was more understated and like typical ANC leaders — bookish and with big plans. When Lesufi moves, it is with an entire media entourage or courtiers. A cameraperson captures his every speech, and a full social media team boosts his profile constantly, as the graphic shows. A platoon of his own Praetorian Guard, the so-called amaPanyaza crime wardens, accompanies him.
He shot himself and the ANC in the foot by treating black South Africans as a homogenous group of “township, hostels and informal settlement” dwellers — the so-called Tish strategy. In fact, each group is very different, and they have different politics and needs. As the central plank of the Gauteng ANC election strategy, it failed and revealed how far removed its leaders are from the province’s people.
“The last time they saw the President was during elections ,” said Gauteng regional coordinator Gadaffi Olifant. When a government puts up signs like this, it symbolises the abrogation of service and responsibility.
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