ANC election’s head, Mdumiseni Ntuli, said the party took its historic support in Mpumalanga for granted. (Darren Stewart/Gallo Images)

• ANC election’s head Mdumiseni Ntuli told News24 the party had taken its historic support in Mpumalanga for granted. 
• By Friday night, the ANC was still holding on to its majority in Mpumalanga with 50.81%.
• By then, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party had become the official opposition in the province.
• Track the latest results via our Elections Map.

While directing its energy and resources to KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC underestimated Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in neighbouring Mpumalanga, where it had been working on the ground.

The party took for granted the support it historically enjoyed in the industrial province, according to ANC elections head Mdumiseni Ntuli, who spoke to News24 as he looked at the leaderboard at the results operations centre of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) in Midrand. 

On Friday night, after 81.5% of the total votes were counted, it looked like that ANC had retained control of Mpumalanga.

Final projections indicate that the ANC will most likely end up with 52% in that province – a significant decrease of about 17% for a party that enjoyed 72.23% support in 2019.

ROLLING COVERAGE | Final projections show ANC maintains its grip on North West, Mpumalanga and Free State

By Friday night, results indicated that the MK Party would become the official opposition in Mpumalanga after securing 17.97%.

But that growth did not happen out of the blue.

After former president Jacob Zuma announced he would campaign for the MKP in December, the party held its first massive rally in Mkhondo. 

At that rally, Zuma gave supporters marching orders, explaining that structures and leaders would be chosen after the party “wins the election”.

The rally was organised and funded by Vusi Motha, the former mayor of the Mkhondo municipality, who is a disgruntled former ANC member. Motha forked out R400 000 to stage the party’s first rally. 

READ | MK Party member and funder says he splashed R400k for Mpumalanga event

Since then, the party has grown significantly in the province, and its popularity has translated into actual votes. 

The situation is worse in KwaZulu-Natal, where the ANC could assume an unfamiliar role as the official opposition.

The situation would have been “far worse”, according to Ntuli, had the party not staged an aggressive campaign there.

“What we may have underestimated was the extent to which the Zuma party was working the ground without them using methods we are familiar with in the ANC. We probably underestimated the extent to which the province’s population somehow responds to their emergence.”

These factors, he said, combined with unhappiness about the state of governance, unemployment, poverty and load shedding, had undoubtedly negatively affected the ANC.

“We underestimated [the MKP] in KwaZulu-Natal. We thought, yes, there were challenges, but we are going to do well, in the same way as it seems to have been the case in Mpumalanga where the MK Party entered Mpumalanga from the southern part of the province, which is close to KwaZulu-Natal.”

Ntuli added:

Ntuli said he was convinced that the ANC would still emerge as the majority to set up a government in Mpumalanga.

Political analyst Mpumelelo Mkhabela told News24 that the ANC’s showing in Mpumalanga meant it had fewer provinces to count on as “strongholds”.

“The most important factor that we have to look at in Mpumalanga is that for a very long time, Mpumalanga, together with the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, were considered the safest provinces for the ANC that are [solid],” Mkhabela said, adding that in those provinces, 65% support was considered as the minimum.

He added:

Mkhondo, a pothole-riddled, dusty town where there are frequent water outages, lies on the border between Eswatini and KwaZulu-Natal.

Mkhabela explained that much of the MK Party’s support had spilt over from KwaZulu-Natal, where it enjoys massive support.

He added that the ANC in the Gert Sibande region had started showing signs of weakness after the 2021 municipal elections. 

“That’s where the EFF made a huge inroad in that area. Already, there was an indication that people there were prepared to flip their votes if they were unhappy with the ANC,” he said.

“So that’s the area where the EFF was building up nicely. Until MK came to eat the EFF’s lunch that it was trying to cook. So, one of the first places the MK Party went to after it was launched was that area.

“What also happened is that the MK Party recruited some disgruntled former ANC leaders.”