Mantashe bemoans fragmented black vote after ANC decline

ANC chairperson also said the party must be prepared to be an opposition party in some councils ANC Chairperson Gwede Mantashe warned that the splitting of the black vote in South Africa has weakened his party and could lead to its destruction. The ANC leader was speaking on an ANC podcast about his party’s disappointing performance in the recent local government elections. The ANC dropped to about 30% of the overall vote, after already declining to 45% in the national elections in 2024. Mantashe on fragmented black vote He agreed that this is “catastrophic” and blamed it on voters switching allegiances to other parties. “What I want people to analyse is the fragmentation of the black voter base. We have 520 political parties that contested the local government elections in 2026, all of them, except three or four, are black parties,” he said. “Some of those [parties] got nothing, some got one seat, some got scattered seats, but the reality is it weakens the black vote and the voice of a black voter. Some won and some didn’t, but the reality of the matter is that so many parties dilute and weaken the black vote and its influence.” He warned that the so-called white parties will benefit from that fragmentation. “The white vote consolidates while the black vote fragments. The white vote can use that advantage to drive wedges among ourselves, and you get divided further. “If we don’t understand the threat of fragmentation… in future we’ll be history.” Mantashe warned of the fates of other liberation movements. “As we go down after every election, we are following in the footsteps of almost all liberation movements… Many of them recover and come up again. We are hoping that the ANC will not drop and disappear.” Coalitions The ANC chairperson also addressed the coalition negotiations that are underway across South Africa. He said the ANC must be prepared to be an opposition party in some councils. “The ANC must never seek to govern at all costs. Where we are a small party, we must be content to be an opposition, and an effective opposition.” [WATCH] GOVERNING AT ALL COSTS The ANC must never seek to govern at all costs, where we are a small party we should be content with being in the opposition and be an effective opposition. Where we work with other parties we must select those parties carefully. This notion that… pic.twitter.com/seK9KC4xYA— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) November 14, 2026 He also said coalition partners need to be selected carefully. “Where we work with other parties, we must select those parties carefully. There are two extremes that are cited by people. Either work with the DA [and] we’ll have stability. I don’t buy that. Or go and work with black parties because of the colour of their skin. I don’t buy that. “Look at every municipality, one by one, and develop a strategy on the basis of the status of the situation in a particular area.” Criticism from former ANC leaders Mantashe also commented on calls for some ANC leaders to step down. “If the national executive committee (NEC) says to us, ‘the leadership must go’, we will go. That structure has recalled two presidents. Even if you disagree with it, you comply because it’s a majority decision in a structure of the movement. “But what we must not be tempted to comply with is when individuals behave as if they’re bigger than the ANC because of their track record and therefore they are expressing views and the ANC must shake. The ANC must take decisions in structures and those decisions must be respected. He said criticism from former leaders hurts the ANC. “The ANC’s structures remain the primary base of engagement. When individuals behave as if they’re bigger than the ANC and express their views outside of the structures, that borders on ill-discipline. “I’m very close to retirement; I’m old. When I retire, I’m going to be making a lot of noise out there, writing articles and doing all that, but what I must always carry in my mind is that there is an ANC with structures and a constitution. That must be respected. If I begin to go away from the structures of the ANC, I must accept myself, before I’m told by anybody, that I’m being ill-disciplined and I’m going to hurt the ANC.” He urged former leaders to help rebuild the ANC, rather than “destroy it and accelerate its destruction”. ‘ANC not dead’ While acknowledging the ANC’s decline, he also stressed that the party is far from dead. “Everybody believes the ANC is about to disappear, but we are still the biggest governing party by far. If you look at the number of municipalities that we are governing on our own, and those we have to form [a coalition] in, you’ll see that we are not close to a death knell. “We have declined; it is a painful process, [but] we must humble ourselves to our people and see if they’ll come back to the ANC, but we are far from being on our deathbed.”