Ex-South Africa President sounds warning to ruling ANC

Former South Africa President Kgalema Motlanthe issued a stinging indictment of the way the country is being run and warned the governing African National Congress (ANC) may lose its majority in 2024 elections unless it improves its performance. 

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“We are in big trouble economically, big, big trouble,” Motlanthe said in an interview in the Drakensberg on the sidelines of a conference hosted by his foundation, according to Bloomberg.

The ANC needs to “interact differently with the electorate, not just by again going to make promises,” but by ensuring people experience real change, if it is to retain power, he said.

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Several opinion polls have shown the ANC risks losing the outright majority it’s held since it first took power in the country’s first multiracial elections in 1994, a backlash again high levels of poverty and unemployment, record electricity outages and rampant corruption. 

Motlanthe was caretaker president in September 2008

Motlanthe’s criticism of the party is all the more stinging given that he one of its most-respected veterans, and the head of its electoral commission.

He was appointed caretaker president in September 2008 after the ANC forced Thabo Mbeki to step down, and held the post for seven months until the party’s new leader, Jacob Zuma, took office. 

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Cyril Ramaphosa, who succeeded Zuma as head of the ANC in December 2017 and as president two months later, is widely expected to seek a second term at the party’s elective conference in two months time.

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