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Nehawu shocked by massive drop in support for the ANC

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The National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) has described the drubbing of the ANC in the recent local government elections as shocking.

The Cosatu affiliate is currently holding its four-day elective congress in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg.

Nehawu is Cosatu’s second-biggest affiliate, with over 200 000 members mainly in tertiary education institutions and public hospitals across the country.

It’s also a staunch supporter of the ANC and its current President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The union says, the unprecedented fall in support for the ANC in the local government elections, where it fell below 50% for the first time, has come as a shock.

Nehawu is facing a serious loss of support of its own.

It’s currently losing members to its arch-rival, the Fedusa-affiliated Public Servants Association, at an alarming rate.

ANC needs to more for its supporters

ANC 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.

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 ANC retained 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.

Post-elections results analysis with Sanusha Naidoo and Tessa Dooms:

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.

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