Real Politics: “Nangu umlungu” is a warning to the ANC
Scrolla | 04.08.2026 16:11
The Freedom Front Plus has discovered an unexpected political asset in Pieter Groenewald. Black admiration for his performance as Minister of Correctional Services has given the party attention it could never buy, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.
The Freedom Front Plus has discovered an unexpected political asset in Pieter Groenewald.
Black admiration for his performance as Minister of Correctional Services has given the party attention it could never buy. But it remains unclear whether “Nangu umlungu” is the beginning of a multiracial political realignment or simply a social-media protest against the ANC.
Groenewald has done what no FF Plus campaign has managed in 32 years: he has made some black South Africans curious about an Afrikaner party.
His growing popularity reflects the emergence of a frustrated voter who is tired of excuses, blame-shifting, corruption and maladministration. This voter is becoming less interested in the race of a government leader and more interested in whether that leader can do the job.
For years, failures in government have been blamed on apartheid, budget shortages, uncooperative officials, hostile courts or unnamed forces opposed to transformation. Many of those explanations contain elements of truth. But they do not fix a pothole, keep the lights on or stop public money from being stolen.
Groenewald’s appeal comes from his forthrightness. He identifies a problem, tells the public what is wrong and explains what he is doing about it.
The prison bread scandal is a perfect example.
Correctional Services was paying as much as R24.50 for a loaf of bread — more than many consumers pay at a supermarket. One contractor supplying prisons did not even own a bakery. The contractor allegedly subcontracted the actual baking at about R15 a loaf and pocketed approximately R1-million a month without producing a single loaf.
Groenewald stopped the arrangement and accelerated the department’s self-sufficiency programme. Offenders now bake bread inside prison facilities at a reported cost of approximately R8 a loaf. Correctional Services operates 12 bakeries with another planned, and Groenewald says the department is approaching 97% self-sufficiency in bread. Its agricultural, manufacturing and food-production programmes saved taxpayers more than R200-million in the last financial year.
The department is also reducing its use of consultants. Spending fell from R119.3-million in 2024/25 to a projected R29.2-million in 2025/26. Prison escapes fell from 20 in 2023/24 to four in 2025/26. More than 2,300 officials faced disciplinary action in the past financial year.
This is not a complete turnaround. South African prisons remain overcrowded, understaffed and vulnerable to corruption and contraband. Tens of thousands of unsentenced detainees are awaiting trial. But politics is comparative. Voters do not compare a minister with perfection. They compare him with the excuses, scandals and drift they see elsewhere.
This explains the phrase “Nangu umlungu” — here is the white man — which has spread through social media and even inspired music. It is not necessarily an expression of racial submission. It is often a sarcastic rebuke to black leaders who promised liberation but delivered tenderpreneurs.
The voter saying “Nangu umlungu” may not support Afrikaner nationalism, Orania or the FF Plus’s opposition to affirmative action and black economic empowerment. That voter may simply be saying: here is someone doing the work.
That distinction will define the FF Plus campaign before the 4 November local elections.
The party has historically performed better in municipal elections than its small national footprint suggests. In 2016 it received about 229,000 votes, winning just under 0.8% and about 67 council seats. In 2021 its support surged to approximately 549,000 votes, or 2.34%, and about 221 councillors — more than doubling its vote and tripling its representation, largely by taking Afrikaans voters from the DA. But in 2024 it won only 218,850 national votes, or 1.36%, and fell from 10 to six National Assembly seats. Many voters had returned to the DA.
This is the FF Plus contradiction. It has a history of local-election breakthroughs but remains vulnerable when national voters consolidate around the DA.
There are warning signs for the DA nonetheless. In Tshwane’s Ward 57, covering parts of Centurion and Lyttelton, the FF Plus increased from 16% in 2021 to more than 44% in a January 2026 by-election. The DA survived by about 270 votes.
The FF Plus is strongest in Afrikaans suburbs and towns in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Limpopo, North West, the Free State and the Northern Cape. It cannot replace the DA nationally, but it can frustrate DA growth.
Another unexpected weakness for the DA is the handling of the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. John Steenhuisen’s management of the outbreak cost him the agriculture portfolio. By the time he was removed, the outbreak had reportedly affected more than 297,000 cattle and resulted in the culling of more than 120,000 animals.
Behind those numbers are farming families who lost livestock, income and years of breeding investment. Farm organisations accused Steenhuisen of reacting too slowly, insisting on central government control of vaccines and failing to work urgently enough with private veterinary structures. Changing the minister does not restore culled cattle, lost income or closed markets. Some farmers who traditionally supported the DA may decide to punish it in November.
The foot-and-mouth crisis also feeds a wider conservative complaint. Some white conservative voters believe the DA has become too accommodating towards the ANC and too reluctant to confront it over racial policy, rural security and farm attacks. The FF Plus has been far more consistent in presenting itself as the defender of minority concerns — speaking forcefully about farm attacks, property rights, language and community safety.
This gives the FF Plus two very different routes to growth. Groenewald’s performance may attract black voters who are tired of incompetence and prepared to reward excellence regardless of where it comes from. At the same time, anger over foot-and-mouth disease and the DA’s GNU compromises may return conservative Afrikaans voters to the FF Plus.
The danger for the DA is that Groenewald is using exactly the same argument it uses to promote Cape Town and the Western Cape: judge us by what we do, not by what our opponents say about us.
The FF Plus still faces a racial and ideological ceiling. Black admiration for one minister does not automatically translate into support for a party built around minority rights. Social-media applause is not a secret ballot.
But the political meaning of “Nangu umlungu” should not be underestimated.
It tells the ANC that liberation history is losing its power to excuse present failure. It tells the DA that it does not own the constituency for clean and competent government. And it tells the FF Plus that its most effective campaign among black voters may not be a new slogan or manifesto.
It may simply be one minister doing his job.
Pictured above: Pieter Groenewald.
Image source: Freedom Front
