Johannesburg - ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa conceded that the reason why their votes went down is because of poor service delivery. He also said it was a mistake to hold elections on a Monday.
Ramaphosa also conceded that branches are weak and in some cases they do not even exist.
Ramaphosa said this while meeting with the Eastern Cape Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) in Mthatha on Saturday. He is on a two-day visit to the province to meet with ANC structures.
Ramaphosa talked about the renewal of the ANC, corruption, strengthening of the party, poor performance during the 2021 local government elections and weak or non-existence of branches. He also talked about a renewal commission which will be set up; the commission will have experienced party members to outline how the party should renew and position itself.
“You cannot have renewal if you do not have leaders who are fit for purpose. Some of them (leaders) want positions while they are charged instead of exercising the stepping-aside resolution from the party’s 54th national conference,” Ramaphosa said.
He said their renewal process should be the one that holds dear the ANC’s values, principle, ideal, conviction as well as its purpose and this they should do as a foundation of their unity.
“We should look closely at the type of leaders that the ANC should have. We need to go back to our document ’Through the Eye of the Needle’ and if there was ever time for for us to go and dust (it) out and look at it closely, this is the time,” Ramaphosa said.
He said combating corruption should be one of their overriding objectives.
“The Zondo Commission has already come out with proposals and as the ANC we are going to go through a rather challenging process but we need courage to go through that so that we can see how best we are able to implement the recommendations that are going to come through the commission. For that we need courage and not cowardice.
“Comrades, we need to do this if we want the ANC to continue winning elections. If we do not do that we can forget about our ability to win those elections,” Ramaphosa said.
He said the other issue which they raised in the January 8 statement, is the question of discipline.
“Discipline in the ANC continues to be eroded, the continued lack of discipline of some members who at times are not elected for positions, they go out to become independent candidates. But the other worrying part is that violence has now become a method of resolving differences in the ANC. Members get beaten at meetings, even female members are beaten by men in ANC meetings, members get shot at ANC meetings, some even get killed. Some members get shot either at home and so forth. This has to stop and those who are involved need to be dealt with very, very strongly in terms of our Constitution. We do not need people like that in the ANC,” Ramaphosa said.
He said a number of members spoke about the manipulation of ANC processes.
“This played itself out as we selected candidates for the election process, a number of reports came at former president Kgalema Motlanthe’s commission. This is going to be attended to so that we do not fall foul of not having to deal with it as if we did not finally implement Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s report. There should be consequences for those who manipulate the ANC processes,” Ramaphosa said.
He said that is a system of fraud and corruption in the organisation and it should be brought to the end.
“A number of you members spoke about factions, and spoke against it and I find this comforting that factions must not be allowed in the ANC.
“We need to ensure that factionalism in the ANC is eliminated. We now need to define what a branch in good standing means,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the ANC was outdone by the DA who managed to get their people to register and vote and the ANC failed to do so.
“If all hands were on deck during past elections, the ANC would have done better. We are no longer able to use basic methods of getting many people to go vote,” he said.
Meanwhile, there was a group of ANC members who protested outside OR Tambo Region Exco meeting calling for Oscar Mabuyane to step down as a chairperson.
Political Bureau