Full reports
Two-hour speech fails to rouse crowd at centenary rally
“Progressive modern management methods should be introduced in the running of the ANC offices,” the ANC said.
“Over the next decade, we will strive to build an advanced cadre of well-trained, professionally competent, decently paid and highly motivated full-time functionaries of the organisation at all levels, and in our operations combine traditional methods of organising with effective use of information and communication technologies.”
The ANC promised to review its leadership election system in order “to enhance internal democracy, the credibility of the process as well as the integrity and suitability of candidates”.
“This will protect the ANC from the tyranny of ‘slates, factions and money’ and ensure that at all times the organisation is led by the most experienced, most committed, most talented and best collective across generations.”
The ANC also called on its members to improve their literacy rate.
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s pledge that the ANC would take “urgent and practical” steps to restore its “core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline” was the only part of his two-hour speech that received any real applause.
Zuma’s delivery of the party’s 38-page centenary January 8 statement in Bloemfontein yesterday, the party’s 100th anniversary, was long on the history of the continent’s oldest liberation movement and frank about national challenges such as education.
However, it was uninspiring and short on vision.
Rumoured threats that the ANC Youth League would try to disrupt proceedings failed to materialise, although the arrival of its leader, Julius Malema, prompted massive cheers.
A 54-page booklet contained the centenary January 8 statement and messages of support from the ANC Women’s League, Cosatu and the SACP. There was none from the ANC Youth League – but it could not be confirmed whether this was by accident or design.
Last week, party chairwoman Baleka Mbete announced a break in the longstanding tradition of the allies and leagues delivering their own statements at January 8 rallies.
The youth league saw this as a bid to muzzle it, while Cosatu and the women’s league were also reported to be unhappy.
Zuma read a summarised version of the statement. While his delivery – from prepared text – has improved vastly since his inauguration as the country’s president in 2009, boredom in the crowd soon set in, as the bulk of the speech spelt out the ANC’S history and achievements over the past 100 years.
It was only when he came to dealing with the party itself, and its need to reflect on how it will ensure its future growth, if not survival, that the crowd responded.
Zuma committed the party to a number of measures, including making it more professional and modern in its operations.
This year, he said, the ANC would take “urgent and practical steps” to:
Rebuild the party’s machinery by “revitalising grass-roots structures”.
Put the ANC “once more at the forefront of progressive forces for change”.
Fast-track the development of cadres, “young and old”.
Ensure “our programme of transforming our country is accelerated and taken to new heights”.
Restore the ANC’S “core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline”.
Put education and skills “at the forefront of the transformation and development agenda”.
Deepen the ANC’S “contribution to the renewal of the African continent and the progressive forces in the world”.
Professionalise and modernise the ANC’S operations.
While the party had – in its almost 18 years in government – got rid of institutionalised racism, developing a sense of nationhood and a “common vision of the future” had been slow, Zuma said.
He repeated his as yet unrealised 2009 promise to launch a national dialogue.
“We continue to have different and differing perspectives on the processes unfolding in our country.
“Despite the progress we have made, there remain deep fault lines in our society that continue to undermine our vision of a united, non-racial and non-sexist SA,” Zuma said.
These included the “persistence of poverty, old and new forms of inequality”, and “patriarchal relations” that still marginalises women.
Rating the ANC’S achievements against the “litmus test” of the aims of the Freedom Charter, Zuma said SA now belonged to all who lived in it, and the people governed.
The rally was the culmination of three days of festivities that brought the ANC together to celebrate its history and achievements.
A bull was slaughtered on Saturday for the blessings of the ancestors, and interfaith church services were held in the restored Wesleyan chapel where the ANC’S founders gathered on January 8, 1912.