The ghost of 2024: Ramaphosa rallies ANC faithful against voter apathy - News24

Imploring party supporters to go and vote on 4 November, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa lamented that voter apathy had cost the party during the May 2024 election, as many assumed the party had already won.

He was speaking at the Sisa Dukashe stadium in KuGompo City, where the ANC held its Siyanqoba rally on Sunday.

KuGompo City is an electoral fort for the ANC. It secured 214 118 combined votes (59.43%) in Buffalo City Metro in the 2021 local government elections. The ward votes were 105 038 (58.35%), while proportional representation votes peaked at 109 080 (60.51%).

Thousands of party supporters braved the cold weather and threat of rain to see Ramaphosa.

After alighting from his convoy of about a dozen cars, Ramaphosa, with his sizable entourage in tow, walked around the stadium to greet party supporters.

A frenzy broke out, with several members storming the pitch to greet him.

The May 2024 elections proved to be an electoral catastrophe for the party, shattering its national support and plunging it into an existential threat in the province.

Ramaphosa said: “In the last election of 2024, people stayed at home in their numbers. ANC voters thought the party had won and did not go to vote. This time around, we must work [until election day]. Let’s encourage our families to go out and vote for the ANC. That is the final push we want. This is an election the ANC must win.”

ANC Eastern Cape chairperson Oscar Mabuyane promised Ramaphosa that the electoral collapse the party experienced in 2024 will not happen in the province, in part, because the party has a strong base in the Buffalo City metro.

The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal support collapsed from 54.22% in 2019 to just 16.99% in the 2024 provincial vote, relegating it to fourth place behind former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party (MKP), which took 45.35%.

The ANC retained only 14 of 80 provincial seats. The loss stripped the party of its KwaZulu-Natal majority and contributed to its first-ever loss of a national majority, forcing unprecedented coalition arrangements. Internally, provincial leadership faced scrutiny from the national working committee over the outcome, amid allegations that members had covertly backed the MKP.

READ | ‘What have you done for us?’: Ramaphosa slams criticism against ANC during campaign trail

Comparatively, the ANC retained its Eastern Cape majority in 2024 with 62.16% of the provincial vote, down from 68.75% in 2019.

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa said the party’s local government campaign listened to gender-based violence victims, businessmen and women affected by local government issues, people with disabilities, unemployment, and grannies in the townships, among other things.

Ramaphosa heaped praise on the ANC government for ending loadshedding for 500 days and minimising load reductions in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

There is an unfolding water crisis in several areas in Gauteng, just days ahead of the election.

He did not say how the party would address this immediately, but said: “ANC councils will move swiftly to fix leaks and invest in the pipes, reservoirs and treatment plants our communities depend on.

“These councils will reinvest the revenue from electricity and water into maintaining and expanding the municipal infrastructure to provide these services.”

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