Slide in support main item on ANC’s agenda
STOPPING the decline in the ANC’s electoral support — rather than Nkandla or e-tolling — will preoccupy delegates at the party’s national general council.
This is according to party head of policy Jeff Radebe and ANC communications committee chairwoman Lindiwe Zulu.
As far as the ANC is concerned, the two said, Nkandla was now “a closed issue” following parliament’s vote in favour of Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report that exonerates President Jacob Zuma from any wrongdoing in the scandal.
The party is scheduled to hold its NGC — a mid-term performance-review gathering — in October.
In 2005, the NGC became a launching pad for Zuma’s presidential campaign, with ANC branches using the gathering to protest against his removal from then president Thabo Mbeki’s cabinet.
With the party’s next national elective conference in 2017, when Zuma is expected to step down, there is an expectation that competing groups will want to use the October NGC to garner support for their ANC presidential candidates.
But on Friday, Radebe said he was confident that the upcoming gathering, to be attended by delegates from across South Africa, would not be a repeat of 2005.
“Well, I think 2005 was different from 2015. There were challenges that we were facing at that time and in 2015 there is nothing like that.”
Instead of internal differences, he said, he expected branches to be preoccupied with arresting the ANC’s de- cline in the polls.
The party this week suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the United Democratic Movement in a by-election in Port Elizabeth in a ward that had been regarded as an ANC stronghold.
The defeat has emboldened opposition parties, which believe they can unseat the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay, which includes Port Elizabeth, in next year’s local government elections.
Radebe believes ANC “cadres are concerned about” the decline.
“So we need to find a way of stopping the decline in our electoral outcomes. I think the members would be reflecting on that so we can design [a] strategy and tactics [to] regain our overall dominance throughout the country.”
Despite Nkandla dominating the political discourse in South Africa, he said it would not be a major issue at the NGC.
“Well, that issue has been ventilated within the confines of parliament and last week parliament resolved on the matter. What other political parties do is their issue . . .
“For the ANC, it is closed as far as we are concerned.”
Zulu agreed with him, adding that Nkandla was “not a policy issue” and the NGC “is there to discuss policy issues”.
“But if anybody decides to raise it, I am 100% sure the leadership will be able to explain what the issue is and where it is right now.
“I don’t think we are afraid of accounting to the NGC if needs be,” she said.
For the governing party, the NGC will have to review government programmes in line with its resolution at its last elective conference in 2012, when it said South Africa had entered “a second phase of radical transformation”.
Convinced that over the past 20 years it has succeeded in consolidating political structures to support the democratic order, the ANC said it had shifted its attention to economic transformation.
“On the economic side, that is where we still face challenges. The NGC is the first gathering of branches to consider how far we have gone,” said Radebe.
One of the areas of focus would be on the recent establishment of the Department of Small Business, which is headed by Zulu, and whether this has helped the government curtail “the dominant role of monopoly capital” which the party defines as “the enemy”.
“In promoting small and medium enterprises in SA, we have to curtail the dominant role of monopoly capital.”
We need to find a way of stopping the decline in our electoral outcomes