The African National Congress (ANC) is not considering imposing a quota of South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) members for its parliamentary list, national executive committee member Jeff Radebe said on Friday.
”The ANC bases itself on the positions the ANC takes at its own conferences. We respect the alliance partners.”
Radebe said: ”The ANC is not considering quotas.”
He was speaking at a media briefing before 800 ANC delegates and alliance and mass democratic movement representatives meet this weekend in Kempton Park to draw up a framework for the party’s election manifesto.
Key areas being considered are the creation of decent work, education, health, crime and rural development.
The progressive introduction of a national health insurance system was one of the party’s proposals.
When it came to crime, the ANC wanted to modernise and transform the criminal justice system, as well as link up with community and street anti-crime committees.
Radebe said the manifesto should not be compared with a policy document or a document arising out of the party’s national conference.
”The manifesto is a broad outline of what the next ANC government would be able to focus on … It is not going to be detailed, nor is it going to be long.”
Radebe said that at the weekend the delegates would discuss a framework for the manifesto.
The framework would be reviewed by an extended national executive committee and by ANC affiliates.
The public would also be able to submit suggestions via email, post and SMS until December 12.
After that, the final manifesto would go into print over the festive-season holidays, said Radebe.
The manifesto would be launched on January 11 in the Eastern Cape.
Radebe said that since launching the public comment forums nine days ago, 1 700 submissions had been received.
He said the number of submissions was ”positive”.
”Quantity is not the issue. It is the quality we are looking for.”
Radebe said all promises made in the manifesto would have been budgeted for. ”Everything that is going to be in there will be costed.”
He said the ANC was not looking to change policies that already had successful results.
”If it ain’t broke why fix it? In all those areas where we have achieved much, we want to continue.”
Radebe gave the example of housing, saying that while shelter had been successfully provided for many people, the quality of the houses was often still problematic.
Here the policy itself did not need to change but the issue of quality needed to be addressed, he said.
Radebe also said the global financial crisis needed to be taken into account when drawing up the manifesto.
”The environment is a little constrained,” he said.
”The manifesto is not a wish list but things that are going to be implemented and things that are on budget”. — Sapa