{"id":15325,"date":"2026-01-10T14:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T14:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15325\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T14:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T14:12:05","slug":"south-africa-president-urges-anc-to-fix-poor-local-government-ahead-of-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15325\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa president urges ANC to fix poor local government ahead of poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANC faces declining support due to poor local government servicesLocal elections must be held before November in South AfricaANC’s 2021 local election performance was its worst since 1994<\/p>\n

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 10 (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday urged his co-ruling African National Congress to address its dismal record on providing basic services, ahead of local elections in which the ANC’s share of the vote is widely expected to slide.<\/p>\n

Africa’s most industrialised country must hold local elections before November, and the ANC often does worse in local polls than national, as voters vent their frustrations over leaky water pipes, sewage discharges and crumbling roads.<\/p>\n

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“The first task for our movement in 2026 is to fix local government and improve services,” Ramaphosa told his party at a televised event in Rustenburg, Northwest Province, to celebrate its 114th birthday.<\/p>\n

In the 2021 local election<\/a>, the ANC won less than half of the votes for the first time since the 1994 end of white minority rule, in what turned out to be a forerunner for national polls less than three years later when the party<\/a> lost its majority.<\/p>\n

“Municipalities must … fulfill their basic obligations,” Ramaphosa said. “They must fix potholes, remove refuse regularly (and) provide clean water and sanitation”.<\/p>\n

The ANC was celebrated for unifying a country divided along race lines, and for one of the world’s most progressive constitutions and judiciaries.<\/p>\n

It punches above its weight diplomatically, bringing a genocide case<\/a> against Israel and securing a G20 summit declaration<\/a> despite a U.S. boycott.<\/p>\n

At the same time, its record on more mundane tasks, such as repairing drains and staffing schools, has been poor.<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa said chronic power shortages had ended, but some municipalities continued to have local outages. He pledged 54 billion rand ($3.28 billion) in state funding for water and power infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Though growth has improved, unemployment remains high, and many young people were starting to “question whether our democracy … and indeed our movement really work for them,” Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n

($1 = 16.4746 rand)<\/p>\n

Reporting by Tim Cocks
\nAdditional reporting by Siyabonga Sishi in Rustenberg; editing by Barbara Lewis<\/p>\n

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Tim Cocks has reported from all over Africa for Reuters for the past two decades (aside from a stint covering the Iraq war in 2008\/9). In his current role, he covers politics, climate change, diplomacy and human interest. Previously he was bureau chief for West & Central Africa. A story on the environmental disaster of Ghana\u2019s artisanal gold mining won him a SABEW award for best feature in 2019. He is also the author of \u2018Lagos:Supernatural City\u2019, an intimate portrait of the life in Africa\u2019s biggest metropolis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANC faces declining support due to poor local government servicesLocal elections must be held before November in South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[488,63,1773,710,707,2000,1995,495,2002,1784,2001,1788,1782,1853,711,1392,1407,491,493,690,1405,1774,1996,695,3017,1399,1408,592,3201,1855],"class_list":{"0":"post-15325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-afr","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-amers","11":"tag-destafn","12":"tag-destdnp","13":"tag-destg","14":"tag-destouswdm","15":"tag-destozatpm","16":"tag-destpge","17":"tag-destpsc","18":"tag-destrast","19":"tag-destrbn","20":"tag-destrnp","21":"tag-destsf","22":"tag-destucdptest","23":"tag-dip","24":"tag-dli","25":"tag-emea","26":"tag-emrg","27":"tag-gen","28":"tag-mtpix","29":"tag-namer","30":"tag-packageworld-news","31":"tag-pol","32":"tag-rulessouth-africa","33":"tag-safr","34":"tag-soci","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-vote","37":"tag-za"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}