There had been no ”bitter conflict” at the African National Congress’s (ANC) policy conference this week, party president Thabo Mbeki said in his closing address on Saturday.
He told the 1 500 delegates at Gallagher Estate in Midrand that the meeting had been highly successful.
Some people would dispute this, saying it was, in fact, a dull and unexciting non-event. Among them would be those who had predicted that the conference would be characterised by ”deep divisions and bitter conflicts among ourselves”.
”Since their ill-intentioned predictions failed to materialise, I am certain that these professional critics are already at work to invent new negatives to give life to their negative campaigns,” he said to applause from the delegates.
There had been speculation ahead of the meeting that the Congress of South African Trade Unions, in particular, would use the event to push ANC policies towards the left. Analysts said, however, that it seemed the ANC and its tripartite allies were very much ”singing from the same page”.
Mbeki said he believes the decisions taken at the conference represent a sensitive and accurate response to the voice of the people. ”The proceedings and results of our conference confirm that the ANC continues to live up to its obligation to play its role as a trusted leader, a loyal servant of the people, and an agent for change,” he said to more applause.
In his speech, Mbeki criticised ANC members who were leaking what was said in party discussions, including those as high up as national working committee and national executive committee level.
”I raise this specific point because for some time now all of us have observed a gravely negative process with regard to our organisational cohesion and discipline.
”I refer here to the unacceptable practice that results in some of our members and structures virtually openly defying decisions legitimately taken by the constitutional structures of our movement.”
Frequently these committees have discussed this development as well as concerns about this ”unacceptable practice”, which Mbeki referred to as something ”of which our movement has no previous experience”.
He further called on ANC delegates to continue to play their role as genuine leaders of the party. Among the requests he made were for them to ”refuse to succumb to what might, at any particular moment, present itself as genuinely a popular view, simply because it was a popular view, regardless of whether objectively, it served the interests of the people”.
On the recent public servants’ strike, Mbeki thanked the government and union negotiators for their efforts to reach a settlement.
”Both our leadership and our government are committed to the sustained improvement of the remuneration and working conditions of the public-sector workers,” he said to applause. ”These workers occupy a critically important position in the developmental state we are trying to build.”
Delegates
Key delegates also declared the meeting a success.
”This was the best conference in our own understanding,” said Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha. ”It achieved everything that we think is positive — we go to the national conference with all these good things.”
Young Communist League (YCL) secretary general Buti Manamela said the league had achieved almost everything it wanted from the conference. ”Especially the issue of free education. As we said before the conference, that issue needs to be discussed and addressed,” he said.
KwaZulu-Natal ANC Youth League chairperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela said the conference ”went very well”. He said it affirmed the central role of ANC branches and the organisation as a whole in terms of policy formation. ”It opened a platform to engage in debates towards to the national conference in December.”
Ntombela said the conference proved most critics wrong, and that the ANC is a united organisation. ”It showed that even though there may be different views among members … the ANC is not divided.”
Another delegate, from the Chris Hani region in the Eastern Cape, said everybody was happy about the outcome of the conference. ”Our revolution now is on social and economic transformation, because we are still poor. We’ll take these resolutions to our branches and [they] will be finalised in December, so that we can improve the lives of our people,” the delegate said.
After Mbeki’s speech, the crowd, which was in a jovial mood, erupted and sang: ”Siyodibana eLimpopo [We will meet in Limpopo]”.
Recommendations made during the meeting will be taken to party branches for further debate and then to the national conference in Limpopo in December. The new party leadership will be elected then. — Sapa