In an article in October 2020 I asked the question: “Can the ANC self-correct?” This was at a time when the ANC under the leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa made two steps forward and one step backwards. During this time, the President announced the establishment of a multilateral and multi-disciplinary body that would be able to investigate and prosecute corruption in an integrated manner. A good plan, but nothing has been heard of it since.

It was the time of massive Covid-19 looting (especailly around personal protective equipment). It was the time when the then Secretary-General of the ANC Ace Magashule said that all ANC leaders did business with the state and that there was nothing wrong with that.

It was during that time that an ANC delegation flew to Zimbabwe for party business with Zanu-PF, at the cost of the state. It was at that time that a number of ANC leaders were arrested for corruption or implicated in corruption, and the Integrity Committee of the ANC asked for more and stronger powers – but nothing happened. Does all of this sound familiar in 2023?

The 2020 article identified four main stumbling blocks for self-correction. Divided leadership; the toxic combination of endemic corruption and entitlement; a lack of accountability, integrity and an ethical culture; and lack of discipline and the lack of capacity to imlplement almost anything. Has anything changed over the last three years?

That article, finally, identified a number of conditions for a possible self-correction process. Amongst these were strong leadership from the top, a ruthless drive in the fight against corruption (including the implementation of the Zondo recommendations), and conducting life-style audits on ANC and government officials from local to national level.

Not one of these conditions have been met or are being met at present. In 2020, the answer to the question to whether the ANC can self-correct was a conditional “yes”, even if it only meant that South Africa would have a less corrupt government.

Would the ANC in the run-up to the 2024 election be able to pull itself together to be, after the election, a better government, to address South Africa’s numerous problems and really serve the people? Or are there perhaps external factors that will force the ANC to change – if such a change is at all possible?

A balance sheet of the ANC and South Africa unfortunately looks even worse than in 2020 (even with ignoring the Covid-19 epidemic and its consequences). There is no time or space to list all of the sorry tales, but the biggest symptom of the ANC’s malaise is probably the unsolvable divisions in the organisation, stretching from branches to the national level.

The murders by ANC members on ANC members in KwaZulu-Natal, in order to gain a place at the municipal feeding trough, is one visible example of this trend. Then there is the fact that almost the whole organisation is riddled with corruption – perhaps not the macro state capture of the Zuma-era, but which is now enedemic at every level.

When one considers the quality of ANC leadership at municipal, provincial and national level, the question involuntarily arises: is this really the best that the ANC can offer? The answer is a disturbing “probably, yes”, driven by cadre deployment, race quotas and entitlement.

With regard to government, the clearest sign of decay in the ANC is the apparently irreversible implosion of the state. Here, too, the horrible triplets of cadre deployment, race quotas and entitlement left their fatal marks. It is as if the decay of especially local government (with the exception of the Western Cape) is rubbed under the noses of South Africans every now and then.

Communities that are without water for days and often weeks, raw sewage running down streets, roads that are untraversable, and an underground explosion in the middle of Johannesburg. And it is only marginally better at provincial level (where the ANC is in power) and national level – although Eskom’s ongoing problems tend to leave South Africans despondent. The dark threads of incompetence, unwillingness to serve, incapability to do maintenance (or even to grasp the importance of maintenance) run like the cracks of Bree Street throughout the civil service. And inside these cracks, corruption flows like sewerage.

The consequences of these tendencies are, amongst others, the failure of education, almost all state owned entities, greater unemployment and greater criminilaity. And the only plan the ANC government seems to have, is the greater centralisation of powers to try and control at least something (like the insanity of the National Health Insurance scheme) and falling back on race and race quotas (the amendments to the Act on Employment (in)Equity).

Aganst this backgroud, it is inconceivable that there are still groups in South Africa who think that the ANC as party and government will pull itself together. Amongst these are, obviously, a significant number of die-hard ANC supporters. A number of the smaller political parties are happy to look the other way and receive alms from the failing ANC government, by serving as mayors in metros here and there. By the way, if one considers the aftermath of the Johannesburg explosion, one wouldn’t be blamed for assuming that Panyaza Lesufi has been demoted to mayor of Johannesburg.

The EFF and the moderate parties agree that the ANC’s time is up. Their various solutions are obviously kilometers apart. But there are persistent rumours that the DA is keeping the door slightly open for a so called “grand coalition” with the ANC – if the latter should fall below 45% or 40% of the vote in 2024.

The rationale for this would ostensibly be to keep the ANC from forming a coalition with the EFF. The DA leadership must, however, realise that the ANC cannot be salvaged – not even through a coalition with the DA. The broken ANC will pull the DA down to its own level. But other South Africans also have to take note that the ANC is irreparably broken. If big business and senior business leaders want to help President Ramaphosa to help the country and save the economy, it is their right. But they will have to realise that the state, just like the ANC, is broken and that at lower levels the political will or competency to execute the best of plans, simply does not exist.

These business leaders will have to find a fall-back posiiton – or they may, in a year or two, find themselves on the wrong side of history, without having noted the inevitable self-destruction of the ANC. A similar warning should be given to faith-based communities, NGOs, academics, people in the professions and youth organisations.

The hope that the ANC would, in the next few months, miraculously self-correct, is a chimera. These leaders and organisations would be much more patriotic if they realised that a new beginning is necessary – and that civil society cannot trust politicians alone with the future of the country. And this is especially true of ANC politicians.

Many South Africans had put their hopes in President Cyril Ramaphosa to turn the ANC around and salvage it. However, by far the majority experts (and more and more well-meaning South Africans) have in the past two years come to the conclusion that he does not have the decisiveness and drive to acheve this – especially as the unity of the ANC seems to be his first and biggest priority.

There are noises from the presidency that the president has started to crack the proverbial whip and set things straight. One would really want to believe this, but if it had not happened since 2019, why would it happen now?

In the context of this article, it must also be said that, even if it were true and it happened, it would not make any difference on the ground. The recent explosion underneath one of Johannesburg’s busiest streets is a case in point. Even though the precise cause of the explosion has not been determined (after weeks), there can be little doubt that it would have been at least partly due to lack of maintenance and bad management.

The point is: even a whole new cabinet will hardly make a difference on the streets of Johannesburg and in 90% of other towns in South Africa. Not even a brand new leadership for the ANC willbe able to save a party that is rotten to its core.

According to dictionaries' “self-correction” is a process whereby an individual or organsation spontaneously corrects mistakes, without external help or intervention. In the case of organisations, leadership, a positive and ethical culture and good systems are necessary to make self-correction happen. Go figure...

The ANC is not only NOT able to solve our problems, the ANC IS the problem. And it must be removed from government – in the interests of South Africa and all its people.

Theuns Eloff is an independent commentator. This article was first published on Netwerk24.