Brink’s fall: Cadres and capturers wherever you look

CILLIERS BRINK held the mayoral position from March 2023 and was removed in late September 2024 through a motion of no confidence via an informal agreement between the ANC, EFF and ActionSA.

During a discourse at the Stellenbosch Word Festival this week, the DA's federal chairperson, Helen Zille, placed the blame for Brink's removal at the feet of Premier Panyaza Lesufi, but I wonder if the reality isn't more complex than the “strongman" politics that Zille's argument implies.

There is a lot of white noise in the background of Brink's removal. At first glance, the breakdown of the DA's relationship with ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba seems to be the reason for the collapse of the coalition agreement – between ActionSA, the Freedom Front, ACDP, Cope and the IFP – in Tshwane.

The DA has been leading coalitions in the city since 2016, and it is certainly valid to ask why financial management and service delivery are still so dire in the metro after nearly eight years. How long does a party that prides itself on its ability to meticulously manage municipalities in terms of the auditor-general's pedantic requirements need to turn around a corrupt system?

My colleague prof. Dirk Kotzé from Unisa points out that auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke, in her most recent report, did mention that Tshwane had shown significant progress in addressing the endemic mismanagement and inadequate financial discipline in the city's budget. The DA and Brink would argue that the systemic corruption in local governments' value and supply chains has deep roots. The oft-discussed inability of the South African legal system to police and prosecute makes it nearly impossible to expose the ANC's omnipresent patronage system. And I think Brink has a point.

It is this patronage system, served and managed by the ANC's provincial executive committee (PEC), that is behind Brink's removal. However, the PEC also serves as a counterweight to Lesufi's monopoly on power.

Even if he wanted to accede to his secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula's insistence that the configuration of the government of national unity (GNU) be replicated at the provincial level, Lesufi simply does not have the political authority to protect Brink or the DA from the complicated will of the ANC's PEC.

Plagued by factions

The ANC in Gauteng is plagued by factions and conflicting interests vying for control of resources and political influence. The PEC certainly does not have a homogenous mindset with a loyalty predominantly to the common interests of the ANC and the country. Lesufi's leadership is the ironic result of unbridled power politics. Yet his presence essentially maintains these sharp dividing lines.

In Gauteng, you will always misconstrue local politics if you don't have proven experience with the ones with their fingers on the political triggers. The PEC has cadres, looters, opportunists, state capturers, and individuals with divergent ideas about who should lead the metros, municipalities, the province and ultimately, the country. This complexity of diverse interests and factions is not united behind his leadership, and Lesufi finds it extremely difficult to navigate these internal power struggles.

Nothing happens in the metros and local governments without the will and knowledge of the ANC's PEC – under Lesufi's chairmanship. As Brink has quite rightly pointed out, without a specific understanding of the identities and characters present in the PEC, you would be unaware of the power struggles between the water truck cartels, the space for opportunism that empowerment creates for the construction mafia, the destructive influence of tenderpreneurs in the local and provincial supply chains, and the discouraging reality of assassination that whistleblowers face.

Moreover, the ANC's political will in Gauteng is limited because it no longer has a monopoly on power in any of Gauteng's mega-municipalities or the province's legislature. The party's inability to win outright majorities in elections complicates the PEC's insistence on a role in the provincial treasury's capital spending.

When the ANC's national working committee (NWC) recently engaged with Lesufi and the PEC about Cilliers Brink in Tshwane and the configuration of coalition politics in Gauteng, it was precisely Lesufi's argument that the fragmented power politics of the province made it impossible for him to enforce an internal compromise. This only reinforced opinions that have been simmering in Luthuli House and the Union Buildings since the national and provincial elections of May 2024, that the PECs of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal should be placed under management.

However, Lesufi warns that an uncalculated intervention by the national working committee (NWC) or Luthuli House could set off the powder keg, destabilising the province even more and ultimately benefiting the MK Party in the 2026 local elections. Gauteng is certainly one of the growth points targeted by the MKP, and prominent ANC members in the province are suspected of sympathising with Jacob Zuma and his party.

Gauteng is the most densely populated and economically important province in South Africa and experiences significant political pressure to address issues with infrastructure, housing, health, and public services. Poor service delivery not only leads to public protests and dissatisfaction but is also reflected in election results. In the context of this fragmentation and the interests of ANC leaders in the province's economic value and supply chains, Lesufi is under enormous pressure to improve service delivery before 2026.

A single dramatic event

The ANC's support in Gauteng has largely declined over the past decade. After the 2014 national and provincial elections, the party's support stood at 53,59%. After the 2016 local government elections, it dropped to 45,85%. It slightly recovered to 50,19% in the 2019 national and provincial elections but collapsed to 36,06% in the 2021 local government elections.

In both 2021 and 2024, the ANC's reduced voter base reflected growing dissatisfaction among urban voters, further exacerbated by increasing support for opposition parties such as the DA, the EFF, and more recently, the MKP. In 2024, the ANC's support further declined to 34,76% in Gauteng. This was part of a broader national trend of the ANC struggling to maintain its majority in key provinces.

Sometimes election results can be traced to a single dramatic event. The Life Esidimeni investigation in 2017/18, led by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, was one such occasion. This tragedy occurred between October 2015 and June 2016 during David Makhura's premiership. More than 1 400 psychiatric patients at the Life Esidimeni cluster of care facilities were transferred by the Gauteng department of health to various unlicensed and poorly equipped NGOs. The move was intended to alleviate budget mismanagement pressure but led to severe neglect, inadequate care, and the deaths of at least 144 patients.

The tragedy became public in 2016 and triggered widespread outrage. Then health MEC Qedani Mahlangu's role as PEC member in the Gauteng ANC made her a key political figure in the scandal. Dismay over the cruelty of a prominent ANC politician towards South Africa's most vulnerable people was manifested in the 2021 and 2024 election results.

Mahlangu resigned in shame on February 1, 2017. Makhura never really was leadership material and dutifully made way for Lesufi on October 6, 2022. In 2021, under Makhura, the ANC's support plummeted from 50% to 36%, and in 2024 under Lesufi, it further declined to 34,76%.

During the post-election review process launched by ANC headquarters Lesufi's political management was hotly debated at both Luthuli House and the Union Buildings. The decision was that the existing instabilities in Gauteng could deepen if the person who is both the PEC chairman and the province's premier were to be redeployed.

Ironically, it was he himself who had to refute the misconception that he was the only stumbling block for Cilliers Brink and the DA-led coalition in Tshwane. Cyril Ramaphosa and Fikile Mbalula initially, like Helen Zille, believed a fish rotted from the head down and that removing Lesufi would solve the problem. However, the likelihood is greater that his removal would lead to even greater instability in the ANC, the province and Tshwane.

♦ VWB ♦

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