‘We fear nothing’: Ramaphosa confident ANC will retain power

President Cyril Ramaphosa is confident the ANC will retain its majority to govern South Africa after the provincial and national elections later this year.

Speaking at the party’s 112th anniversary celebrations in Mbombela, Mpumalanga, on Monday, Ramaphosa said those who thought the ANC could be airbrushed out of existence or removed from government were dreaming.

“That is not going to happen. It’s just dreams because the ANC which has led this process has embedded itself in the hearts and in the minds of our people and through trial and tribulation, through ups and downs, we were able to prevail as the ANC and we were able finally to overcome the 342 years of colonialism and apartheid.”

The process Ramaphosa was referring to was the party’s role in the fight against apartheid which led to the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

He said 1994 was characterised as a breakthrough and not a victory because it was a beachhead moment.

“We had reached a point where now we could march to greater achievements as we moved on to improve the lives of our people.”

That ANC mission to better the lives of South Africans was continuing and those who underestimated the party would be surprised, he said.

“The process of dysfunctionality and disunity in the ANC was making us weak and I can testify that we are much stronger now. The ANC is much stronger than what it was a few years ago. Those who underestimate the ANC have seen nothing yet, they will see us because we are stronger now,” he said.

In the past 30 years, the ANC-led government had changed South Africa from what it was in 1994. “Whether they like it or not, the ANC has changed this country,” said Ramaphosa, but adding though that much still remained to be done.

He said the party was best placed to unite the broadest cross section of people behind the cause of building a better country.

“When the ANC speaks of uniting the people of this country, we do so in the knowledge that we are the organisation best placed to unite the broadest cross section of people behind the cause of building a better country.

“When you look at all these other organisations, all of them that are being established, some are Mickey Mouse, others are Donald Duck and so forth, all of them, you can’t begin to think of a single one that would be able to unite a cross section of South Africans like the ANC. It’s only the ANC that can do so,” he said.

The message the ANC would take to the voters as the election campaign intensified would be to look at its track record over the last 30 years.

The electorate would find the ANC had done well, had experience, the leadership to do well, had structures and was not a fake or fly-by-night organisation that was just put together recently. It was a real organisation that was leading, Ramaphosa said.

“As we enter the campaign, the message that we will be putting out there is: yes, we see all these other parties that are coming up and have come up, we are prepared to take them on, we are not scared of them, we will put them in their place. We are not scared of anything, we fear f*kol,” he said.

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