‘We are ready to listen to Gauteng people’
THE ANC in Gauteng is set to embark on a “listening campaign” in an effort to win back support as it is worried about losing the province to opposition parties in 2019.
ANC provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile implored leaders to listen to the people as failure would lead to “more crisis”.
His remarks come after ANC leaders including President Jacob Zuma were booed and heckled and prevented from addressing May Day rallies across the country on Monday.
Mashatile also took a veiled swipe at former AU Commission chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, saying those who were openly campaigning to succeed Zuma in December, despite a moratorium on succession race, were ill-disciplined.
“It’s true that Gauteng has not yet decided who should lead the ANC come the elective conference. Our view is that it’s important that structures of the ANC must look at the calibre of leaders that must take us forward.
“Once that process is open by leaders we will be able to pronounce. We are trying to keep to the rules of the movement,” Mashatile said
When asked if it would not be a little too late by the time the ban on the succession race was lifted, he said: “The people who are already campaigning are obviously not following the discipline of the organisation and the leadership must call them to order, otherwise we will have no organisation if everybody does what they like.”
Earlier this year the ANC provincial structure called for a consultative conference to address challenges dogging the organisation.
“We need a forum for introspection in dealing with issues. We don’t want to rush into early elections; there’s no need for an early elective conference at this instance,” Mashatile said.
Leaders who were booed during the May Day rallies was a “worrisome development that says something’s not right”, he said.
“I would expect that the ANC and alliance leadership will be meeting to assess the situation and see what it is that we can do to correct whatever is wrong. It’s quite clear there is something that the people are telling us, that is not going right. We can’t close our eyes and think that everything is going well”.
The Gauteng human settlements MEC said the booing meant something was wrong in the country.
He said they had long accepted there were challenges in the ruling party.
“We have committed ourselves to those challenges, even within the alliance who have called for our president to step down. If you don’t deal with the issues that people are raising, it will affect us and we have to be worried.
“We will spend a lot of time in Gauteng addressing the issues people are raising, trying to listen to them and trying to respond positively. A lot is going to be done in the next few months to attend to the problems facing this movement and correct them,” said Mashatile.