ANC in KZN holds lekgotla on way forward for party
SERVICE delivery and transformation were key issues on the table as the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal started its two-day lekgotla yesterday.
With local government elections scheduled for next year, the party wants to deliver better results than it did in last year’s national elections.
Provincial chairperson and Premier Sihle Zikalala told delegates the National General Council expected to be held in June would again test the unity of the organisation.
“The NGC by its nature is a platform to assess the progress we are making in advancing the revolution. It is not an elective platform.
“However, we should also bear in mind and be conscious of the fact that since 2005, the NGCs have been used as a launching pad for the next conferences of the ANC.”
Zikalala said the approach to the NGC should be driven by the perspective of building a united ANC – “building an ANC that should be an agent of change, that will be able to mobilise all sectors of society towards socio-economic transformation”.
He said introspection was needed to see if the interests of the poor were paramount or if the political landscape has been defined “as a career path for self-enrichment in the country”.
“Individual’s place themselves above others and see politics as a career,” Zikalala said, warning that this attitude did little to deal with inequality, unemployment and poverty.
The lekgotla will also focus on the four regional conferences that are yet to be held in the Moses Mabhida, lower south coast, General Gizenga Mpanza and crucially the eThekwini regions.
“The approach to these regional conferences must be united, must be open to all members of the ANC.”
Zikalala said that while the regional conferences will be a launching pad for the 2021 elections, the party did not want a situation where there were winners and the rest were seen as the vanquished.
Zikalala said the lack of unity in the party had proven costly in the 2019 national elections and that the party had to take lessons out of the large number of voters who abstained, or face the consequences.
“This province has learnt how the lack of unity has affected the movement.
“There were divisions here in 2015 and there was a lack of unity from this province ahead of the 2017 elective conference at Nasrec.
“If cadres of the ANC hold chaotic meetings, members of society will not trust them.”