Amy Musgrave and Vukani Mde
The ANC opens its mid-term conference today amid a volatile political and economic climate that has put its allies on edge and cast doubt on the party’s ability to continue its dominance at the polls next year.
More than 4 000 delegates and guests will gather outside Johannesburg this morning when President Jacob Zuma delivers his political report to the national general council.
The parlous state of the economy, accelerated socio- economic transformation, land reform and rural development, the capacity of the state to deliver, and organisational renewal of the ANC are the most pressing issues the president is expected to deal with.
Zuma will have to give the ANC its line of march heading towards next year’s critical local government polls. The ruling party, which traditionally does better in the general election than in municipal polls, is under added pressure in some metros with the election less than a year away.
The ANC’s own assessments of its strength, contained in its discussion documents, warn of the possibility of electoral losses resulting from poor economic conditions and unsatisfactory performance from party local representatives.
“In brief, both in terms of its formal policy positions, its organisational network in society and the level of popular confidence reflected in elections, the ANC currently remains the only primary force capable of driving the project of social transformation. However, this is dissipating.
“The ANC’s leadership status and role are under threat; and other political forces seek to exploit its weaknesses to dislodge it. Especially with regard to such issues as state capacity and effectiveness, ethical conduct, dignity and gravitas, the ANC is losing the moral high-ground,” reads the party’s discussion document on the “Balance of Forces”.
Zuma will also have to deliver a message that placates Cosatu and the SACP, both of whom have grown more restive at what they perceive as slow progress towards the “radical second phase of the transition” the ruling party promised at its 2012 national conference.
Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini yesterday said the ANC’s discussion document on economic transformation did not fulfil the promises made at the Mangaung conference. “It’s business as usual, even though we’re in a crisis,” Dlamini said.
The SACP’s second general secretary, Solly Mapaila, said the document “falls short on a wide range of issues”. “It continues to worship the National Development Plan as if it will sort out all our problems… it is business as usual. We need to think out of the box.”
Mapaila said the party would also like to see a greater focus on youth development strategies. Both allies vowed that they would push the ANC for a more decisive break with its economic policy outlook, warning of dire consequences if the party ignored them.
Cosatu on Wednesday staged countrywide marches at which it presented the government and organised business with a range of demands, including a scrapping of the e-toll system in Gauteng, the banning of labour broking and an end to what the federation terms a “jobs bloodbath”.
But Enoch Godongwana, the head of the ANC’s economic transformation sub-committee, which drafted the document, said there was little cause for unhappiness at this stage. “The NGC is by its very nature a report-back process. That’s what the discussion documents do. They evaluate and assess progress towards meeting the resolutions of the last national conference.”
Godongwana said accelerated job losses in the economy were the result of “external factors beyond the control of the ANC”. He said the collapse in commodity prices and a drought that had shrunk the agricultural sector 17.4 percent in one quarter, were among these “external factors”.