Cape Town - After several postponements, the ANC in the Western Cape has confirmed its ninth provincial conference was just a week away.
The much-anticipated conference is set to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CT-ICC) from June 23 to 25.
The party said the conference took place after “an extensive and thorough process of rebuilding structures of the ANC in the province by the Interim Provincial Committee (IPC)”.
Since losing the province to the DA in 2009, the ANC has struggled to regain its dominant position.
With new parties like the Patriotic Alliance (PA), Cape Coloured Congress, and the Good Party continuing to make inroads, winning votes continued to prove challenging, they said.
Stellenbosch University, School of Public Leadership Professor Zwelinzima Ndevu, said he expected there would be leadership change.
“We know that there is an interim committee so there’s certainly going to be new leaders.
“One would like to see the accommodation of all demographics in the Western Cape.
“So the leadership that emerges out of this conference, should be a leadership that reflects the demographic in the Western Cape.
“Especially with the Coloured people being in the majority, they should find the ANC as a home and they can only do that when they see, at the leadership level that it reflects their people, so that would be very important for me to see, if that could be achieved.
“In terms of priorities, it should prioritise the rebuilding of the party, secondly it should also focus on regaining its lost ground.
“They should not even think about next year’s elections, they should think about rebuilding the party to be a strong opposition, ensuring its party structures are functional, with proper leadership on the ground.
“I don’t see them winning back the Western Cape in the coming elections but maybe after five years if they build a strong party but not now,” Ndevu said.
Policy analyst and human rights activist, Nosikhulule Nyembezi added that the ANC needed to align its programmes with the needs and aspirations of the people of the province.
“We have seen in the past, their election manifesto, their election campaigns have been misaligned with the needs of the people in the province. Even when you look at StatsSA community surveys, people are asked about the top five priorities, which include things like unemployment, crime, and local economic development.
Then you look at the election manifesto of the ANC. None of those issues people identity feature high up in the manifesto.
We see most of the time in the election campaign, the ANC is concerned about palace politics; who should be in power, who should replace who,” Nyembezi said.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) Western Cape provincial secretary, Benson Ngqentsu, said they expected the ANC in the province to emerge from its 9th provincial conference “committed to the building of an activist, campaigning structures grounded amongst the masses and also with an ideological superior leadership and membership”.
“Further, such ANC and leadership must also be committed to the reconfiguration of the alliance, by reconfiguration we refer to amongst other things, a shared responsibility on the policy direction, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes and also deployment and withdrawal of deployed cadres. Such in our view represents the basic tenets of renewal. Meeting the above minimum standards will enable the liberation forces (headed by the ANC) to regain the confidence of the majority people of our province and as a consequence of that reclaim political power in the Western Cape.
“However, the following regressive tendencies, if they are allowed to persist, have the huge potential to thwart all the ideals of our organisational renewal and reconfiguration of the alliance. Such regressive tendencies include key amongst others; racism, tribalism, regionalism, sexism, factionalism and the use of money. We hope and trust that the conference will not serve as an auction where delegates are made commodities where they are sold and bought by those with money. If such regressive tendencies succeed, a wealth faction may win the conference but lose the ANC,” said Ngqentsu.
As part of its preparations for the conference, the ANC in the Western Cape will hold a press briefing on the state of readiness today.
Cape Times