JOHANNESBURG - The ANC's grip on power could continue to weaken.
This is the view of political analyst Sandile Swana, who has predicted that the party could fall to around 30 percent over the next 20 years.
And while it will remain a major player, its survival in government will depend on coalitions.
Swana says this as he traces the party’s decline to 2006, when the ANC lost control of the City of Cape Town to the DA, an outcome that marked a significant shift in governance.
“The ANC got about 37% in Cape Town and the DA got about 41% and took the metro permanently away from the ANC for the past 20 years. And then later on, took the province. So the decline has been there, and it's decisive; they are going down,” Swana said.
Swana said the only way that the ANC can rebuild confidence with the public is by delivering consistently and competently.
“There is no other option,” he said.
Swana’s comments as the party faces a legal battle with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
The ANC filed papers with the Electoral Court in Bloemfontein on Friday, 4 September, challenging the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) candidate nominations deadline.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the party’s candidates’ names had been submitted "timeously and validly".
A total of 181 ANC candidates in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State have been affected by the technical issue.
Mbalula defended the decision to approach the courts, saying it is not a means of seeking preferential treatment over its candidates’ lists and maintains that a technical glitch was responsible for its failure to meet the IEC’s candidate nominations deadline.