It helps to have a clear target, but the ANC is too ill-prepared for the mountain it must climb, argues Qaanitah Hunter, as the election date gets nearer.
The ANC has set itself a mission impossible.
In just over 30 days, it must get three to four million new people to come out to vote for it.
It also has its own doomsday scenario, dropping below the 10 million vote mark it garnered in the 2019 elections because that means it would lose its majority.
Thanks to a leaked recording of the ANC's national executive committee (NEC) meeting over the weekend, we have a glimpse into the party's election strategy.
Spoiler alert: Things are not going well for the party.
It enters its seventh election wounded and in disarray with a previously unthinkable reality it may lose its majority.
More power with more votes
Elections are about numbers. The simple equation is that the more votes you receive, the more power you get.
According to the ANC's head of elections, Mdumiseni Ntuli, there are 27 million registered voters, and at 70% voter turnout - which is high - there would be 19 million voters. To get a majority, you need around 10 million votes.
To have a comfortable majority, you need 13 million votes.
In an era away from single-party dominance - the years of a two-thirds majority - the maths matters more than anything else.
The ANC has seen a steady decline in support since the 2009 elections, where it got 11.6 million votes.
READ | Pieter du Toit: Election Brief - ANC decline gathers pace, final fall from power now only question
Its worst result was the 2021 local government election, where its supporters simply didn't show up to vote, and the party garnered just over five million votes, or 45% of the vote share.
With clear targets in sight, the question is how will the ANC pull this mission impossible off?
Opinion polls predict up to a 20-percentage point drop for the ANC in support.
The more conservative predictions put the ANC in the mid-40s.
In other words, its worst case of holding onto its support base of 10 million votes received in 2019 is a pipe dream.
ANC remains bullish
However, the ANC is not entertaining what is being described as an inevitability and is bullish about its chances.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was right to read the Riot Act to party leaders, who have become a deadweight in the party's election campaign.
Never before has the ANC's election campaign been so lacklustre and unorganised.
Even its fervent opponents will concede that when it matters, the ANC knows how to put on a show and rally its troops to campaign across the country.
But party leaders have conceded this time around, things are chaotic, and the party's elections machinery, but for a few die-hard members who also happen to be state employees, is mostly subdued.
This week, the ANC admitted its own tardiness led to the failure to order posters on time. This is why most of the Western Cape and other parts of the country have few or no ANC posters.
READ | Adriaan Basson: Why are Ramaphosa and top ANC leaders afraid to debate the opposition?
There is also no coherent messaging in media debates and interviews because it is almost impossible to get an ANC top seven leader to participate in media events.
Moreover, the ANC has little to show for its reform promise.
It helps to have a clear target, but the party is too ill-prepared for the mountain it must climb.
The ANC of OR Tambo and Nelson Mandela may be arriving at Mount Kilimanjaro in flip-flops.
High visibility and effective communication, as the NEC resolved, is too little too late to change the ANC's fortunes.
- Qaanitah Hunter is assistant editor for politics and opinion at News24, and co-author of 'Who Will Rule South Africa'.
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