Delegates attending the ANC NGC. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
As the ANC gathered this week for its national general council to assess its performance and reflect on the state of the party, the word “renewal” was bandied about on the grounds and along the corridors of the conference centre.
The NGC came just days after the party’s Johannesburg conference which saw current mayor Dada Morero ousted as regional chairperson by Loyiso Masuku, ending months of internal factional battles.
As has become expected of ANC conferences, the Joburg gathering was rocked by claims of delegates being bought to vote along factional lines — a clear sign that some ANC members still see the party’s renewal as optional — perhaps a case of a patient not responding to the medicine.
Vote buying has become entrenched in the ANC. Even current president Cyril Ramaphosa’s two elective conference victories at Nasrec were accompanied by accusations of money — big money — exchanging hands as factions belonging to him and his challenger, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, fought to the bitter end to wrestle control of Africa’s oldest liberation movement.
The party has conceded — through its erstwhile secretaries general Kgalema Motlanthe and Gwede Mantashe — that money has become a big factor in deciding who becomes ANC leader, even at regional level.
The result is that the conveyor belt continues to produce errant or corrupt leaders for the party. Calls for renewal will remain empty rhetoric unless all its members heed to call.
From evidence on the ground, the ANC appears not ready to self-correct or embark on an honest path of rebirth and renewal. By the party’s own admission, rogue elements still fill the pews of its branches — dodgy characters who join the movement for self-enrichment. At the NGC, several leaders bemoaned the issue of corruption, state capture and factionalism as being at the centre of the decline of the quality of cadres in the ANC.
Motlanthe has even gone as far as suggesting that the ANC must completely die for it to rise again. Perhaps from its ashes, real renewal will begin.
For now, renewal will remain a pipe dream for a party that has lost its way and continues to bleed votes as citizens realise it is not ready to go back to the values of past leaders such as Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela.
The 2024 national elections, where the party’s national support dropped to 40% for the first time since the first democratic polls in 1994, was perhaps the final warning that the ANC will not govern South Africa on its own again. Coalitions are going to be a permanent reality for the party.
The ANC knows what it needs to do: rid itself of factions, criminals, careerists and money-chasing cadres.
Renewal is not an option — it is a must.