Cape Town - ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe says they should accept that the governing party was going through a difficult period.
“For the first time since 1994 we recorded elections results below 50 percent. To some it says nothing, but to us it speaks a lot,” Mantashe said, addressing the conference of the Amathole region in East London, in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday.
He warned the conference against taking an “ostrich approach” and being in denial, saying the province fared well in the elections on November 1.
The ANC saw its fortunes dwindle in many provinces and even lost control of some councils, including metros and was forced to enter into coalitions in councils such as eThekwini metro.
Mantashe said they should have assessed whether the ANC has been optimal in its “good performance” in the Eastern Cape.
“I hope this conference has just done that. How do you do that? First of all, you have to do an overall analysis of each region in the province to see if all regions performed well,” he said.
Beyers Naude and Kouga municipalities were not under the control of the ANC and Koukama was governed through a coalition government.
“If we do the analysis properly we will identify areas where we need to pay attention and build the organisation. The reality will dawn that we can do much better and ring fence areas that need our attention,” Mantashe said.
He also noted that it was within the Amathole region that the district municipality with the same name had experienced the threat of not paying salaries of its employees.
“I hope you discussed it … It was said there is bloated staff in the district municipality and therefore the load was too heavy for the municipality.”
Mantashe said a conference ought to be about assessing the state of councils in the region, and not about feeling good.
“It is the work of a conference of the ANC in a region like this to assess what we did right, what mistakes we continue to commit and what we should correct.
“A conference is not just to elect leaders, a conference, in main, is to look into problems, look into resolutions and begin to use a conference as a platform to build the organisation.”
The top five leaders were elected uncontested by the delegates on the first day of the conference on Monday.
Mantashe said uncontested leadership could be good and bad.
“It is good, if it reflects the unity of the region. It is bad if it is papering over the cracks,” he said to a clapping from his audience.
Mantashe insisted that the delegates to the regional conference would be ’playing marbles’ if they were papering over the cracks because these would soon resurface.
He told the delegates that they should apply their minds to the resolutions they come up with at the provincial and national conferences.
The ANC national chairperson said that the region was not leading the debate on the land question although the nine wars of dispossession were fought in their back yard centuries ago.
However, Mantashe said the region, which was still to elect additional members to the regional executive, should be more united than before.
His advice to those who were not elected was that it was not because they were not wanted, but their duty was to congratulate those elected.
“It is the first sign to say you welcomed the outcomes of the conference,” Mantashe said.
He equally said that everyone serving on the elected collective should bring an attribute.
“The attribute must make the organisation stronger,” Mantashe said as he called on the Amathole region to take the responsibility of unifying the Eastern Cape seriously.
“A divided ANC is bad for the ANC. I am not asking you, I am telling you. You can divide the ANC but a divided Eastern Cape is bad for the ANC and it is bad for the country.”
POLITICAL BUREAU