Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Newly elected African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Mothlante had a hectic first week at the party’s Shell House headquarters, drafting its anniversary statement and preparing the ground for talks with other political organisations.
His orientation included daily two-hour meetings with his predecessor Cheryl Carolus, and a session with his new boss, ANC president Thabo Mbeki, to prepare the January 8 statement and meetings with the party’s head of departments.
His deputy, Thenjiwe Mtintso, has not yet joined him as she has to serve three months’ notice at the commission on gender equality. She hopes to join Mothlante on a full-time basis in April to assist in preparing the ANC’s machinery for the elections and the next millennium.
Despite the physical distance between them, both are committed to a common goal: that the proposed talks between ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party must kick off this year and should extend to other black political organisations.
The prospect of talks – first hinted at by former ANC president Nelson Mandela in his speech to the party’s 50th national conference in Mafikeng last year – gained momentum this week when the new secretariat threw its weight behind the project. Organisations expected to be approached include the Pan Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) and its splinter group, the Black National Conference of Review. ANC officials say the talks are part of its broader electioneering strategy to initiate a common agenda for transformation.
If agreed, the strategy will see the ANC forging closer relations with its fierce rivals in KwaZulu-Natal, and smaller but credible black parties such as the PAC and Azapo.
An exception from talks is Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer’s United Democratic Movement.
Mothlante says the ANC has always been in favour of talking to all “progressive forces” who support the process of transformation and “not those opposed to it”.
“There are many thoroughbred white South Africans who value their citizenship. These are the people we should be reaching out to. As far as black parties are concerned, whenever they criticise the ANC openly, they do are not doing so because they want to discredit the movement. But they want to keep it on its toes. That is why we have to find common ground between us so that when we mobilise for the elections, we would be steering in the same direction,” he says.
The ANC says it has not closed the door on the UDM, but wants to wait until it is certain about Meyer and Holomisa’s political objectives.
Its multi-pronged electioneering strategy will also involve the revitalisation of the ANC’s grassroots support in branches, visits by the party’s hierarchy to branches, and meetings with professional, business, non-governmental organisations and other formations in white communities that are not affiliated to mainstream parties.
Mtintso says although the ANC has prioritised mobilising grassroots support for the election, most branches are almost ready to do the job themselves. She argues that the plan should be to maintain this process beyond the elections.
Says Mtintso: “Our people come from the culture of struggle and activism. So when there is nothing concrete to mobilise on they tend to relax, but come election you would see them at their best.”
Mtintso and Mothlante’s priority is to ensure that the overall election strategy is finalised prior to the ANC’s first national executive meeting on January 19 to elect its operational arm, the national working committee. Together with these structures, the two hope to finalise the ANC’s list of candidates for the 1999 elections before the end of the year.