The African National Congress’ Head of Presidency, Sibongile Besani, says the party needs to embark on what he calls a radical service delivery programme to gain back its supporters.
This after the ANC dipped below the 50% mark, in local government election results for the first time in South Africa’s democratic history.
Besani says the party needs to do more for its supporters in future.
“These are things that we can’t spin. In 2011, there was a wake-up call, in 2016 as well and now in 2021. So the people have spoken by not going to the polls and not voting us quite strongly where we had a stronghold. So I think we are on the point as the ANC where we have to do much better than we did. It means people felt that they are not doing enough. We need a radical programme of service delivery,” says Besani.
ANC retains over 160 municipalities
The African National Congress (ANC) retains 161 municipalities across the country in the 2021 Local Government Elections.
The ANC national support dropped from 53.91% in the 2016 Local Government Elections to 46.04% in this year’s polls.
Out of 26.1 million registered South African voters, only 12.3 million made their voices heard at the polls.
The Electoral Commission has released the outcomes of the local polls at the IEC’s Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Pretoria on Thursday evening.
GRAPHIC: How political parties have fared in #Ekurhuleni in 2021, compared to 2011 and 2016. #ElectionResults2021 #LGE2021 pic.twitter.com/v2jJCJajTv pic.twitter.com/LKcTxpY4sn pic.twitter.com/J1gdmIiRbm
— SABC News (@SABCNews) November 4, 2021
Ramaphosa thanks SA for voting
President Cyril Ramaphosa has thanked South Africans for voting in the recently concluded Local Government Elections. These were the sixth local polls since 1994.
President Ramaphosa also implored all elected representatives to work together to improve the living conditions of South Africans irrespective of their political affiliation.
He said this is a testimony that the country’s democracy is coming of age.
President Ramaphosa’s remarks following election results announcement:
