The ruling African National Congress is failing South Africa due to its infighting, the brother of former president Thabo Mbeki told Reuters in an interview.

Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki said on Tuesday (December 13) the ANC had failed in its challenge to restructure the country after the end of apartheid.

“The challenge of the ANC…is to restructure the South African economy so that it becomes less dependent on cheap labour, less dependent on minerals, on the export of minerals and more diversified so that it employs more people. The ANC hasn’t achieved that,” Mbeki said.

“The ANC is spending more time fighting among themselves, as to what should we do about stabilising the country, but nobody has a solution that works, so, they are at one another’s throats really, which is a futile exercise. It exasperates the disillusionment of the electorate with the ANC.”

Delegates from the governing African National Congress (ANC) will converge in Johannesburg from Friday (December 16) until Tuesday (December 20) to pick their candidate for the party leadership, historically the ticket that decides who leads the country. The next national elections are due in 2024.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to win re-election as leader of his party after he was spared impeachment proceedings over a scandal dubbed “Farmgate” involving millions of dollars found stashed in the sofas at his private farm.

If Ramaphosa loses, it could open the door to a rival ANC faction allied to former President Jacob Zuma. Zuma, who is being investigated for grand corruption, denies wrongdoing.

“The voters are now dissatisfied with the ANC, because they said to the ANC: you said you are going to diversify the economy, you were going to solve the poverty problem, the inheritance from the apartheid system, but nearly 30 years later, you haven’t done so,” Mbeki added.

“So the voters are now abandoning the ANC, going to opposition parties, some of them not voting, and that’s the challenge the ANC are sitting with.”