ANC eyes ‘low-hanging fruit’ municipalities

THE ANC’s Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) has said it has identified 11 municipalities it terms “low-hanging fruits for ANC-led coalitions and outright majority” in next year’s local government elections.

In a report back on the meeting held on Saturday at Community House in Salt River, the IPC said it already had five such municipalities that the party was governing in coalition.

“This is testimony to the work the IPC and regions have been doing on the ground. In every ward, every zone, every municipality, the ANC is regaining the confidence of our people,” the IPC said in a statement.

The IPC also noted the ongoing discussions, albeit informally at this stage, on the possibility of increasing the number of seats in the legislature, in line with the growing population the provincial legislature was serving.

“The current seats allocated were decided more than 30 years ago and since then the population has almost doubled.

“The ANC will also make its submission, through appropriate public officials, to the demarcation board on the limits of wards.”

The IPC received an IPC working committee report which, among other things, contained the work that must be done in preparation for the provincial conference of the ANC.

“The ANC is regaining the confidence of our people ANC Interprovincial Committee statement

The IPC also acknowledged the month of February as the 30th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from Victor Verster Prison.

“This was a turning point in the history of our country, and in this regard the IPC will be holding a commemoration event at the Victor Verster Prison (now Drakenstein Correctional Services) to honour our late president but also to remind ourselves how far we have travelled since that day.”

Details of the event will be communicated soon.

The IPC received a presentation of a pamphlet on the national question from ANC veteran James Nculu.

The national question pamphlet addressed, among other issues, the ideology of the ANC, understood as progressive African Nationalism and not the narrow nationalism that had emerged in the national discourse, with blackness used as a credential and racist emotionalism dominating even social media spaces.