REACHING consensus on policy issues is crucial for the ANC, but the focus will be on leadership tussles at two regional conferences starting in KwaZulu-Natal today.
The Harry Gwala region will hold its elective conference at the Kokstad Youth Centre, while the eThekwini conference will take place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli ICC.
Thabani Nyawose and former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede are the main contenders for the position of chairperson of the powerful eThekwini region.
Nyawose yesterday said that the issue of policy would take on greater significance at the party’s national policy and elective conferences that are scheduled for later this year.
“We will go to those conferences as a region and the discussion will be on ANC policy. Delegates will check how far policies taken at the 2017 elective conference in Nasrec have been implemented and the previous ANC policy conference have been implemented. Delegates will decide as a region on the need for a policy shift or to strengthen policies,” Nyawose said.
Njabulo Mchunu, spokesperson for Gumede’s supporters, said the conference would revolve around policy and leadership. “What she (Gumede) has always advocated for is radical economic transformation and policies aligned to this. Branches that support her will support these policies with an emphasis on the nationalisation of mines without compensation and the establishment of a state bank. These are the existing policies that came out of Nasrec and branches must make sure these policies are implemented and not just something that forms part of the chorus when it is time for conferences,” Mchunu said.
Analysts believe the issue of leadership will dominate the conferences.
Professor Bheki Mngomezulu said he did not anticipate a significant policy shift this weekend, and factionalism politics would play itself out.
“We know that in eThekwini, Zandile Gumede is the face of the RET faction and Thabani Nyawose is the face of the Cyril Ramaphosa camp. Only one slate will emerge victorious.
“We will see factional politics but hope there is no repeat of last year’s drive-by shooting.” (Three women were killed in Inanda at an ANC branch general meeting discussing municipal election candidates.)
Mngomezulu said the party would discuss its policies at the conference in June, with final discussions at the elective conference in December.
Political analyst Thabani Khumalo said the focus of this weekend’s conferences would be on leadership and not policy. “You cannot expect factions to discuss constructive issues. As long as factions dominate the ANC they won’t reach consensus because they don’t see eye to eye. I don’t see that changing.
“In 2017 and 2019 prominent ANC members and leaders vowed to vote against their own organisation, hence ANC fortunes dropped in the two subsequent elections.”
Khumalo said conflict within the ANC was so high that the winner celebrated the victory and the loser plotted a strategy of pulling down the winner.
“To expect the ANC to speak in one voice on strategy is just a pipe dream.”
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