ANC supporters gather for the party’s 113th birthday rally at the Mandela Park Stadium in Khayelitsha. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane/Independent Newspapers
By Thulani Dasa
Cape Town - On the 113th ANC birthday celebrations in Mandela Park in Khayelitsha, we witnessed an ageing liberation movement that’s suffering from senility.
Senility is defined as a weakness or mental infirmity associated with deterioration of the body and mind in the elderly. It’s symptoms and defects are intellectual impairment, progressive memory loss, poor judgement, impaired concentration and confusion.
One of the symptoms was displayed by the ANC Deputy president Paul Mashatile, who employed the usual dishonest diversion tactics and claimed that the DA run-up City and province only deliver services to the suburbs and neglects places like Khayelitsha.
This is patently untrue. The DA delivers more to poor communities than any ANC government anywhere in the country. We do not steal money and we spend it on what the constitution requires us to deliver to people.
The ANC began to show the symptoms of senility when she was in her late 80s to early 90s.
While the cancer of corruption grew rapidly, eating away her moral fibre, the demon of factionalism was at large, tormenting her soul.
She began to make irrational judgements, eroding the gains she herself had made. That was when she killed one of her own offspring, the Scorpions.
Suffering from progressive memory loss, she seems to have forgotten that media freedom is a cornerstone of the democracy she fought for. She is now fixated on muzzling the SOE’s and judiciary.
At a policy level, she appears even more confused. She speaks in different tongues to different audiences, be it on the land redistribution, economic policy or social transformation.
Reckless Radical Economic Transformation is thriving as a result of this confusion.
She has lost her sense of selflessness. Infighting and appetite for pomposity is tearing her apart.
The age of senility has brought miseries and internal decay as seen on the 2024 general election outcomes.
Thus the battle for the soul of the ANC is no more – it has become a battle for tenders. This chase for pomposity will accelerate her demise in the upcoming 2026 Local Government Elections.