OPINION: The elections are over. What now for the ANC?
The fact is that newly elected President Cyril Ramaphosa has little or no reason to celebrate. The enormity of the challenges facing him - especially since the ruling party is already in its most vulnerable and divided state in post-apartheid history - is enough to worry the most confident incumbent. The relatively poor election results for the ANC and the reasons why must be of great concern to him.
Those living conditions have caused deep and palpable unhappiness with basic services, such as housing, water, sanitation and electricity, which is why millions of eligible voters stayed away from the polls. This brings me to a repeated fallacy all the ANC leaders have peddled since the 1990s: they have the right polices, but the problems are with the implementation thereof. Nowhere is this charade more blatant than with basic services. There are many research reports, from both universities and the NGO sector, which have repeatedly found that the biggest problem underlying these services in townships is neo-liberal policies which have commercialised, corporatised and commodified them.
First, by ending universal provision of the 6kl, municipalities made a big saving, which they should have utilised towards subsidised free water, of at least 10-15kl, for poor households. My research showed that the 6kl was grossly insufficient for poor households.
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