OLIVER METH

The ANC responding late to political moments is slowly placing it inside the DA’s story. And once you are inside your opponent’s story, you are no longer shaping the narrative — you are reacting within it. That, in my view, is where the ANC keeps getting it wrong.

We are seeing this play out in local government campaigning. The DA has been disciplined with simple, repeated slogans: “Fix Joburg,” “Believe in DA,” and “Where the DA governs, it gets it right.” These are not policy-heavy arguments, they are political frames that define reality first and explain later.

Leaders including Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Premier Alan Winde stick to the script, often repeating the party’s buzzwords of clean audits, functional government, better delivery. The message does not change, even when the reality is more complicated. That consistency builds belief — the very “Believe in the DA” that they are campaigning on.

Now compare that to the ANC.

At its core, the ANC’s problem is not only governance pressure or internal fighting. It is a storytelling problem.

Politics is about perception. It is about the story people believe, and right now the ANC does not have one clear, repeated story that sticks. It has many messages, but no single narrative that carries across national leadership and branches.

This is a party that once understood storytelling. During the liberation struggle and early democratic years, the ANC shaped public opinion with discipline and clarity. It spoke in one voice.

There were attempts to hold on to that. The “we have a good story to tell” line, pushed in the mid-2010s under its former leader Jacob Zuma and later echoed under President Cyril Ramaphosa, tried to highlight progress since 1994. Leaders like Naledi Pandor and the late Pravin Gordhan pointed to real gains of social grants, housing, electricity and democratic stability.

The message never landed, it stayed a slogan. It was said, but not felt. It could not compete with daily realities such as load-shedding, unemployment and failing municipalities.

Today, the same problem shows up again.

Take the ANC’s “fix local government” message. It speaks to the real pains of broken municipalities, poor services, and corruption. But it feels vague. It tells us what is wrong, not clearly what will change.

Worse, ANC leaders do not sound the same.

Politics is about perception. It is about the story people believe, and right now the ANC does not have one clear, repeated story that sticks.

At national level, President Ramaphosa speaks in calm, careful language about renewal and rebuilding. In Gauteng, Premier Panyaza Lesufi speaks with urgency about crime and service delivery. In other provinces, the message shifts again, to coalition blame, to internal politics, to inherited problems.

So instead of one ANC story, you get many, and that confuses people.

Now look back at the DA. “Fix Joburg” is a strong line. But Johannesburg has seen unstable coalitions, changing mayors, water issues and ongoing infrastructure problems. Even when the DA has been part of governance, stability has not followed. That is a clear contradiction. If Joburg is being “fixed”, why does it keep breaking?

The ANC should be asking that question every day, in one voice. But it doesn’t. It responds late, and in pieces.

The same applies to “Where the DA governs, it gets it right.” Cape Town still has deep inequality. Informal settlements still struggle and services are uneven depending on where you live.

These are not small issues, they are political openings, but they are not turned into a strong, repeated ANC message.

Take Joburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille and her viral social media campaigns, where she highlights visibly broken roads in a way that is immediate, visual and easy to understand. She is not trying to explain policy complexity, but to create a simple mental association between ANC governance and service failure, and by the time the ANC responds, the image has already circulated and the frame has already been set.

And this brings me to a deeper question. Is the ANC’s communication problem shaped by the style of its leader?

Because we know, also from past experiences having worked with Ramaphosa, that he does not rush. He is careful and tactical. He moves like someone playing chess — quiet, patient, thinking a few moves ahead. Sometimes so quiet you wonder if he has moved at all.

It has worked for him. He has outmanoeuvred opponents inside the ANC and survived internal battles. He knows how to wait, then strike — but that style does not always work in public politics.

And while Ramaphosa is studying the board, the DA is already on the loudspeaker telling everyone it has won. It is fast, loud and repeats its message.

So is the ANC’s slow approach a strategy, or is it losing the narrative in real time?

And as we get closer to the polls, another question comes in. Will the ANC suddenly sharpen its message and douse the DA’s flame? Or will it keep moving slowly while the DA defines the game?