Renewing the ANC is not a one-night stand but a long-term commitment, says the party’s KwaZulu-Natal task team convener Jeff Radebe.
Radebe, a former cabinet minister and ANC policy head, was speaking on the sidelines of the ANC national general council (NGC) in Ekurhuleni on Monday.
He said the proportion of women attending the NGC was much better than in previous years.
“A few weeks ago, the president [Cyril Ramaphosa] declared gender-based violence [GBV] as a national emergency. All these [women attending in numbers and GBV as national crisis] are indicative of the fact that renewing the ANC is not a one-night stand but a long-term commitment, not only of leaders but members of the ANC at the branch level.
“In KwaZulu-Natal, we are doing a lot to ensure that women occupy important positions not only in the provincial task team but also in the provincial working committee and also head subcommittees of the ANC,” Radebe said. ”Even in our delegation here, we made sure that all the branches’ delegates had to nominate three delegates — two women and one man. All these things are indicative of renewal.”
Radebe said the ANC was ensuring that women are at the forefront of “our struggle for total liberation” and that having young people at the NGC showed the ANC was renewing itself.
In KwaZulu-Natal, we are doing a lot to ensure that women occupy important positions.
— Jeff Radebe
During his address at the NGC, Ramaphosa told members that the national executive council declared that 2025 was the year of renewal.
Ramaphosa said the 2024 election results confirmed that the party faced an “existential crisis”, adding this was the moment the ANC should either renew or perish.
“We must do much more work, with greater urgency and determination. For the ANC to be successful in transforming South Africa, it must become a renewed, responsive, modernised, well-governed, well-resourced, caring and effective formation,” he said.
Ramaphosa said for the party to remain an effective and trusted agent of change, it needed to renew and rebuild itself.
“Our movement holds this belief not just because we have committed mistakes and missteps, but also because of the innate desire to serve the people of our country better. The fundamental mission requires the ANC to be united, coherent and disciplined in order to advance the national democratic revolution towards the achievement of a national democratic society.”
Minister of social development Sisisi Tolashe said the renewal of the party was evident in the stance that Ramaphosa has taken by identifying problems of alleged corruption and establishing the Madlanga commission of inquiry, which is investigating allegations of criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system.
“We are in the implementation of renewal,” she said. “It is not fast, but renewal, as we understand it, will not be something fast because you can’t just browse over [issues]. You must develop a strategy and find warm bodies who can do it best,” she said.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who delivered the party’s mid-term report, said government failures, corruption and slow economic reform have eroded ANC support.
He said the decline in the party’s support was not accidental but was driven by state capture and service delivery breakdowns, among others.
Mbalula said renewal was no longer an option but “an existential imperative for the survival of the organisation and a continuation of the national democratic revolution”.
Sowetan
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