Frank Chikane, DA Polls and the ANC’s Retreat From the Cities

Are going to be gaining. It is going to be there that it should. I just want to stay with that for a moment. Is the ANC has also always been an urban and urban force. Many of its richest moments of its history are written in Johannesburg or in resistance that takes place in Pretoria or the rise of the organized working class in Kezedin and in the Eastern.

Factories, so it's quite a moment for the ANC to be declining so rapidly in the metros it established. The metros it established its intellectual basically, where its intellectual repository actually is. I mean, like, as you point out, I mean, like, the Johannesburg is the city where the Nelson Mandela's and Walter Sisudes came and set up shops. Its archive is here. It's the epistemic.

Stories, yeah, be it the treason trials, the massive campaigns were launched in the cities. Yes, and as you say, the turban strikes of 1973, that's where John Langle Dube basically established the Institute, and yes, and that place now, and a progressive guy, forward-looking individual, and the people in the place where John Lang Lamaniwalbe.

Lived and did his activism. Basically, he's retreating to basically a very feudalist party. It's quite a it's an I don't want to overstate the moment, but for me, it's quite significant that we're this the meta story may be of the rise of the DA in the cities, but the loss of the ANC of the cities is historically a moment as well. Yes, and the ANC, part of their

Messaging now. And we've spoken about some of the messaging, the fact that they've been speaking a lot more about the reforms that have been instituted by the government over the past few years, turning certain SOEs around, turning certain services around. And the ANC also changing its messaging, nuancing its messaging. But what they have not managed to break through and that.

I think it's so much more difficult for them to answer the question of the moment that they brought this about. I think it's a difficult question to answer. And I've seen the kind of like in the past week or so, as the president and other leaders have been on the ground, and the messaging is: we're going to fix it. Trust us again, we're going to fix it. But you broke it. And you know what? It is a historical moment. They brought this upon themselves.