The way most of the media portrayed the results of the recent elections you would be forgiven for thinking that the African National Congress lost the elections, or at least that the Democratic Alliance turned the ideological corner and is now seriously threatening the core ANC support base.

Indeed, quite a few ANC activists were worried at what they read, which suggested DA forays into the heartland of ANC support in the African townships and settlements. The evidence of the election results did not support this portrayal.

What are the facts?

The ANC won around 62 percent of the vote. The ANC has always enjoyed overwhelming but not total support among the African voters. Other parties like the PAC, AZAPO, IFP, ACDP and the UDM have had some degree of support in these communities. Within these communities, there have always been people who did not bother to vote. This is especially so with Local Government Elections.

Only the breakaway COPE, understandably, had been able to chip away at the ANC support base. This accounts for the marginal percentage drop in the ANC tally in the 2009 National Elections, when the ANC fell just short of the two-thirds majority it had previously won.

The reason this decrease was not so huge then can be attributed to what I call the threat factor. Faced with this looming breakaway threat, the ANC pulled out all stops and galvanized its considerable election machinery to campaign for victory. The core support of the ANC, angered by the splinter group and the liberal glee that greeted it, responded massively to what they saw as a media backed, right wing supported threat. The 2009 election thus had a high turnout, and the ANC won decisively.

The media hype about the DA prospects prior to the recent local government elections also did have a threat effect, but not to the extent of 2009. The high voter turnout was due to DA supporters who were given hope by the DA and the media that the DA could take over some Metros such as Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and even Johannnesburg! Largely the white DA supporters turned out to vote in big numbers and the DA's well funded machinery made sure to deliver all those who could not drive themselves to the voting stations.

The effect of the media hype about the DA was also to undermine some of the support base of the smaller parties like the IFP and the Freedom Front, whose supporters turned to what they thought was a horse better placed to win against the hated ANC. In the Western Cape, the swallowing by the DA of the ID was a major factor in the overwhelming DA victory.

The assertion that the DA has whittled the ANC support base may be true to an extent only where it relates to some minority populations of Coloureds and Indians. But that was not true nationally. The ANC was able to win comfortably in the Northern Cape, where the majority of voters are Coloureds. This decrease in local government elections support was also not a recent phenomenon. It has been a trend since 2001.

Indeed, all this does not suggest that the ANC should be complacent; just that the DA and the liberal media should not try to justify failed predictions with spin.

As for this diminishing support amongst Colored and Indian voters, there is only one effective response the ANC can make: deliver services to these and all communities in a transparent, fair, reasonable efficient and effective way. The hearts and minds of these communities should be won back in the ideological contest with our detractors. The ANC is the only party whose policies have the long-term interests of all South Africans, including the minorities at their core.

The ideological battle for the soul of these communities, driven by the liberal media and detractors, are fueled by real and perceived corruption, and poor service delivery. It is, however, largely on the back of some serious shortcomings and lethargy by some of our municipal structures that this offensive is launched. The bad stories that are reported frequently give the impression of a general malaise.

Yet many ANC councils had done wonderful work and were rewarded by increased electoral support. This work was ignored by those like Alistair Sparks, who were leading the liberal ideological offensive. Some among us are also susceptible to the universal branding of local government as corrupt and inept.

The refrain by Alistair Sparks in the Business Day of the Financial Mail's David Williams' "the swings the thing ", as a pointer to future trends of the DA performance, shows just what hopeless optimists some of these liberal commentators are. They want to make us believe that there has been a huge "swing" of voters from the ANC to the DA which portends ill for the ANC in future and hope for the DA of growing electoral support at the expense of the former.

They are hopelessly out of touch with the pulse of the majority of South Africans who are the ANC constituency that they pretend to be authorities on.

There is nothing wrong with the biased advocacy of Alistair Sparks that masquerades as journalism, as long as it does not arrogate for itself authority over the heartbeat of the vast support that the ANC enjoys. This support will never be for the taking by the DA.

The comparisons between the two-thirds majority achieved in 2004 and 2009 were also biased and sought to portray the present ANC leadership, particularly the President of the ANC in a negative light. This was part of the propaganda and ideological offensive against the ANC.

They would have us believe that the drop in the percentage support is due to Zuma and is therefore a liability that the ANC keeps at its peril. Are they therefore not fueling the contestation and divisions that they always say bedevil the ANC?

Surely, Alistair Sparks knows that 2004 and 2009 were different in many respects. Surely he also knows that the percentage received under Zuma in 2009 was bigger than that we got in 1994 under Mandela, but he dare not invoke the fact.

In 2004 the economy in South Africa was on a high. The elections in 2009 took place in the middle of a deep recession. The ANC in 2008/2009 faced the most concerted ideological battering following the leadership change in Polokwane, which the liberal media abhorred; the President of the ANC, who led the election campaign then, was facing corruption charges; COPE was encouraged and formed following the recall of President Thabo Mbeki by the ANC; those who were angry about their loss of power and the leadership change found an excuse to break away and went with quite a number of ANC supporters. This simple explanation eludes those who want to delude themselves about a "swing" to the DA.

Swing there might be, but it is not from core ANC voters. Nor are we likely to see any such swing in the near future, as long as the DA continues to represent the narrow interests that it does. And when it introduces real changes in leadership and outlook, the core white support it enjoys will desert it in droves, and it will die a natural death.

The ANC has nothing to fear from the DA, now and in the future.