A provincial government in South Africa begins and ends with the Premier. The Premier exercises the executive authority, appoints the Provincial Ministers and assigns their powers and functions, and is responsible for implementing provincial legislation. Quite simply, a Premier assembles the government for a province to serve throughout the five-year term, assuming the responsibilities and obligations mandated to the province by the Constitution. As such, in the lead up to every general election, political parties name their candidates for Premier in advance to launch campaign manifestos and inform the province’s voters of the kind of government they can choose to serve them in the next term.
In the Western Cape, the DA named its Premier Candidate, Alan Winde, last year. Other political parties have followed suit: the FF+, ACDP, and even new kids on the block The Cape Party, GOOD, and ATM have named their Premier candidates in recent months. Why then has the ANC, the party hellbent on winning back the Western Cape in the upcoming elections, still not named a Premier candidate for the province?
It was reported earlier this year that the ANC was expected to reveal its Western Cape Premier Candidate on Sunday, 6 January. The day came and went, and yet the party was still languishing over its provincial list, the first of which was nullified by the party’s top leadership after several allegations of corruption and membership fraud came to light. Yet even the second attempt to elect new members was fraught with errors, with a number of sources claiming that several members who placed high up on the lists were removed and replaced by other factional candidates. Just another day in the calamity it seems.
Nearly three months later, and with just over eight weeks to go until election day, an ANC Premier candidate for the Western Cape has yet to manifest, which means the ANC has no manifesto for the province, no consolidated approach to governing the Western Cape, and no clear vision for the next five years of governance in the province. One would think the party has already pre-empted a loss…
So what, or rather, who does the ANC hope will win the hearts and minds of the people of the Western Cape? There are rumours of the imminent return of Ebrahim Rasool, former Western Cape Premier fired by his own party and alleged to have paid journalists by means of cash in brown envelopes to slate his opponents and write stories favourable to the ANC. A charming candidate indeed. As ANC elections head in the province, Rasool recently accused Premier Helen Zille of “recreating an apartheid society in the Western Cape[1]”. I wonder if Rasool is aware that censorship and the manipulation of media freedom, such as paying journalists, was also key to the apartheid regime’s success.
Then we have ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs, who recently referred to the DA’s election messaging as “yet another exercise in sanctimonious self-glorification, obfuscation, lies and pats on the back[2]”. Quite ironic considering that Ebrahim Rasool told the Cape Town Press Club last month that “if you punish the ANC at the polls, then you punish the country[3]”, a statement dripping with sanctimonious self-glorification and the smug self-praise synonymous with ANC politicians. I think it has become quite clear that if voting against the ANC is a punishment to South Africa, then the country is in serious need of a good beating, something the residents of the Western Cape have been aware of for quite some time.