South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) did finally launch it’s 2024 election manifesto ,in front of a packed Moses Mabhidha stadium in Durban, Kwazulu Natal , with the venue engulfed in a sea of ANC colours.
Ahead of what many political analysts have touted the tightest election since ANC came to power in 1994,the Party’s leader and President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, exuded confidence, as he spoke outlining what the ruling party has in-store for South Africans in the next five years.
With the ANC’s back seemingly against the wall, faced with a plethora of problems bedeviling the Rainbow nation, from load shedding, unemployment, poverty, corruption amongst a host of socio-economic challenges , the party still believes it is the best foot forward for South Africans as contained in its manifesto.
Young South Africans are anticipated to play pivotal role in deciding which way the May 29 vote will go and the ANC in it’s wisdom chose to resonate with the youth as Ramaphosa declared his party had mechanisms in place to create 2.5 million jobs and whittle down the country’s unemployment rate currently at 32.1%.
” Over the next five years, the ANC will implement a jobs plan,the plan will provide 2.5 million job opportunities, We have experience of creating jobs with evidence that jobs have double from 7 million to 14 million.The job creation will include those who have degrees and diplomas who are unemployed and doctors who are unemployed are all going to get jobs,” declared Ramaphosa to roars of applause from the packed stadium.
A sniff at the manifesto reveals the ANC has tailored it to the apparent challenges facing the South African people in what it called six the key pillars upon which the document is predicated on.
‘We will focus on six priorities that are critical to speeding up transformation and improving the lives of the people: our jobs plan; building our industries to include an inclusive economy; tackling the high cost of living; investing in people; defending democracy and advancing freedom; and building a better Africa and world.We will do better, we will do more and we will do it faster” reads the president’s key note address in the manifesto.
However as has become the norm in African politics, it is one thing to promise and have a glowing blue print but another to deliver on it’s contents. The ANC as the ruling party since South Africa attained independence, will have the ghost of past missed targets haunting it come May 2024.
In it’s defence , the ANC always singles out developments towards black empowerment with an increased number of black people finding their way up in the corporate corridors of power, education, access to health, increase in the numbers of overall people in employment and being the party that played the fatherly role in attaining independence .
Unfortunately, as public sentiment show , successes of the past do not really count in politics, it is the now that matters and it’s no secret that South Africa today, has more problems than before.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) , Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the recently formed Umkhonto Wesizwe backed by former President and ANC stalwart Jacob Zuma and a host of old and new smaller parties, are all feasting on the current challenges attributing them to the failures of the ANC government. The discord in the ANC itself which has led to the expulsion of some cdes like Acie Magashule has not helped matters. Unlike before, the ANC has seemingly failed to reunite factions post an elective conference.
It remains to be seen if the discord will be enough a stumbling block to an ANC victory come May. Many political analysts whilst acknowledging the election will be a tighter affair than before, agree ANC still retains enough support across the country to gain a simple majority easily. Questions arise on whether the ruling party will be able to garner enough votes to a resounding majority victory allowing it form a government on its own. Whatever the outcome of the May plebiscite maybe, it is clear the ANC is fighting for it’s loosening grip on the politics of the Rainbow nation. A coalition government is the last thing that it would want given the ideological differences they have with the two main rivals, DA and EFF.
