The Constitution always has the last word

The political firmament is shifting seismically. We have a ruling party that has no idea how to respond to it. Confronted by both systemic and political catastrophes, it is unable to provide a coherent response to the challenges that threatens its existence. 

It lost its majority in recent local and national elections. It has failed to act on the Zondo Commission findings. It has a National Prosecuting Authority that functions with the same efficiency as a car with water in its fuel tank. It has a police commissioner who is making serious allegations against the policing leadership. The opposition is taking the ANC on in its heartland. The President refers to his major opposition party as more efficient at governance and service delivery than his own. The President’s record of acting on the recommendations of commissions he established is dismal. We have a government that has no system of consequence management. 

The last two administrations have been woeful, partly because the ANC NEC, stuck in an ideological cobweb, is trying to govern the country in competition with the ANC it sent into government. With the dismissed Ace Magashule and the current Fikile Mbalula as Secretaries-General, we saw images of presidents in waiting who are trying to control the President in power. The ANC NEC became a stand-up comedy club when Magashule, as its Secretary-General, attempted to suspend the President of the ANC who also happened to be the president of the and the country, after the latter had suspended him. 

Before this fiasco, the now infamous ANC Premier League of Supra Mahumapelo, Magashule, and David Mabuza, had become influential powerbrokers within the ANC. However, that too was short-lived, as political opportunism sank its fortunes at the 2017 Elective Conference. They eventually faded into political insignificance. The ANC’s doctrine of internal appeasement, which has kept the obvious fractures within the party together with sellotape, has brought it to where it is today: a once-proud movement about to lose a local and national election with even greater margins than it did in 2021 and 2024. 

There is no satisfaction in writing about the ANC in this manner. It is horribly sad. It is the movement that fought for and brought us freedom. However, nostalgia is never beneficial in politics. The ANC, plagued by its own moral turmoil, continued to choose leaders who failed its own published standards, to lead its government. Lacking the courage to fire the delinquent, they called on their elders to make decisions they were too scared to make. The inertia was terminal. 

All these issues are born out of the suicidal pact the ANC made with itself when, in 2006, former President Zuma said the ANC is more important than the Constitution. That statement created a crater of a crack in the trust the public had in the ANC. The die had been cast, and the 2021 and 2024 scoreboards revealed the results.

It showed that two rounds have been lost. It does not look good for 2026 and 2029. This insight reveals the internal culture of the ANC. Despite its deployed leaders having collapsed municipalities and provincial governments, which in turn have resulted in the collapse of towns and cities, it keeps them in power. The ANC have collapsed systems of justice, healthcare, education, and public transportation. It has strangled the economy, yet it still praises itself. 

When you exalt yourself above the Constitution and continue to deploy those birthed by that slogan as the envoys of your message, the Constitution will render its judgement upon you. South Africa needs public office bearers who do not denigrate or violate its Constitution, nor the systems and laws that the Constitution establishes.

It's generally referred to as the Rule of Law. After 31 years of being in power, the ANC still doesn’t grasp this. Drunk on nostalgia, they stagger to the ballot box. Only this time, there’s no one there. 

* Davids is the Executive Director of Urban Issues Consulting.