Harare | Sunday
THE African National Congress’ national executive committee was by Sunday evening still locked in what had been scheduled to be a three-day meeting somewhere near Johannesburg.
The agenda of the meeting was said to include such hot-potato issues as the Zimbabwean political situation as well as the South African economy, government’s HIV/Aids strategy, the tripartite alliance and preparations for the party’s 51st national conference, scheduled for December.
The meeting on Friday opened amid reports by the Mail&Guardian that the ANC’s paid-up membership had fallen from 300 000 in 1999 to 89 000 towards the end of last year.
This was ascribed to a normalisation in national politics.
”However, party sources also attributed it to apathy among middle-class black people who were now in good jobs, together with some popular disillusionment with government’s economic policy, which had not eased unemployment, and the party’s stance on HIV/Aids,” the paper reported.
But ANC representative Nat Serache disputed this logic, saying a fall in membership numbers did not translate into a loss of popular support as the outcomes of the 1999 general elections and the 2000/1 municipal polls showed.
Meanwhile Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo were scheduled to meet with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Monday before flying to London for talks with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Mbeki, Obasanjo and Howard are mandated by the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to decide what action should be taken after the controversial election in Zimbabwe.
Pressed for comment, President Thabo Mbeki’s representative Bheki Khumalo referred all enquiries to ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama.
Neither he nor his staff could be reached for the better part of Sunday as their cellphones were switched off. – Sapa