Eastern Cape African National Congress chairman Makhenkesi Stofile closed the party’s 4th provincial conference on Saturday, telling delegates to work to rebuild confidence in the ruling party.
He said: ”The victim has been the integrity of the ANC”. The ANC was increasingly reaching the status of a church that no one attended because ”it was a congregation of hypocrites”, Stofile said.
He said the ANC was ”fast approaching that status not because of its policies or programmes but because of its activists. We must go out and cleanse the image of the ANC in the eyes of the people.”
Stofile acknowledged that the ANC in the Eastern Cape had gone through difficult times since its last provincial conference in October 2002 had been declared null and void by the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Stofile handed out a heavy defeat to his challenger parliamentary safety and security portfolio committee chairman Mluleki George, beating him by 366 votes to 125.
Stofile said the road to the conference had been ”difficult, arduous and trying”. After everything that had happened, Stofile said he could say ”I am a tried and tested cadre of the ANC”.
He said: ”These were trying and painful times and no one can say they did not learn something as a result of the process.”
Stofile said there was a need for delegates to go out and correct the mistakes that had been made and become ”reconciled with the comrades from whom we have become divided. Everyone must be given the opportunity to make a contribution to the ANC.”
On a personal note, Stofile said ”we are proud to have come from this conference as a legalised leadership” adding that while last October’s conference had not been rigged, people had said that it had been and as a result ”we felt dirty. Now we feel clean.”
Looking ahead to next year’s elections, Stofile said the ANC should go into the contest ”with the resolve to win everything in sight” adding that there was no political party in the world that did not ”search for 99% of the vote”. ‒ Sapa