ANC will continue to win - Zuma

Cape Town – The African National Congress will continue winning elections and the only difference will be by what percentage, President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday.

Closing off a debate on democracy in the National Council of Provinces, the president chastened opposition parties who celebrated the party’s decrease in support.

Responding to some of the speeches by ANC and opposition party MPs, Zuma said the ruling party was a game changer.

"The ANC has won elections, has been winning elections and it is going to [continue to] win elections. All we can argue about is the percentage.

"No one can argue about whether the ANC is going to win elections or not."

He said opposition parties celebrated every time there was a 1% drop in the support for the ruling party - as if the ANC had lost.

Zuma said opposition parties were too interested in what the ANC did.

He bragged about the statesmen that had been produced by the ANC, including former president Nelson Mandela.

Taking on a school principal role, Zuma also schooled the MPs on the meaning of democracy. This was after some MPs, in their speeches, referred to the employment of "cronies".

He said people needed to understand that in a democratic state, once a party lost elections, they packed up their bags and got out of government buildings.

"The people who are coming in... with their comrades, people that they trust, will implement their policies. That’s democracy."

Zuma said some people interpreted democracy as nepotism, but that this tendency was "childish politics".

He said when one party lost and another came in with its own people in the United States, there were no complaints about nepotism.

"Because there is no party that can win elections and take people who don’t understand policies to come and implement those policies."

In South Africa, people were not asked about their party affiliations when they applied for jobs as that was not an issue, Zuma said.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.