Mbalula’s Tantrum

Statement by Ashor Sarupen – DA Federal Council Chairperson:

The DA notes Fikile Mbalula’s inability to attack the DA’s 2026 election manifesto, calling it ‘Thatcherite.’ The ANC Secretary General’s very weak attack on the DA’s Manifesto, tells South Africans everything they need to know about the ANC in 2026.

Fikile Mbalula’s tantrum about our election Manifesto, shows that there is nothing substantive for the ANC to oppose in the DA’s governance plan.

Confronted with a DA manifesto focused on getting broken municipalities working again, Mbalula reached for ideological labels from 1980s Britain because he cannot defend the ANC’s own record of government.

South Africans do not care whether the ANC can attach an ideological label to a refuse truck. They care whether the refuse truck arrives. They do not care who owns the equipment that repairs a burst pipe. They want water coming out of their taps.

If Mbalula was honest he would tell South Africa that the ANC itself already lets private business participate in service delivery where they govern (badly) in Mafube and KwaDukuza.

These interventions have stopped the all-out collapse of water and electricity supply in those places, on the watch of the ANC.

Perhaps the most revealing part of Mbalula’s statement on the DA’s Manifesto is his admission that the DA is in the Government of National Unity because of the “collapse of the ANC majority”. On that, at least, we agree.

The ANC lost its national majority because millions of South Africans grew tired of ANC slogans and lables, whereas voters want clean running water, their rubbish collected, their roads to be maintained and municipalities that function.

For too long, the ANC confused state ownership with state capacity. It built a system in which politicians controlled everything, while increasingly struggling to make those things work.

The DA takes a much simpler view: government exists to deliver for all.

Where the state can deliver a service efficiently, it should. Where working with businesses, communities or other partners can deliver a better service, faster and at better value for residents, government should have the common sense to do so.

That is not “Thatcherism”. It is called governing.

South Africans certainly do not need lectures about economic ideology from a party whose period of dominance ended with devestatingly high unemployment rates, while ANC-run municipalities across the country struggle to perform their most basic functions.

The ANC can debate Thatcher. The DA is going to get municipalities working for all.