Durban — ANC treasurer-general and acting secretary-general is adamant that the party will win the 2024 elections, despite a poor showing at last year's local government elections.
Paul Mashatile was addressing delegates in his opening address of the long-awaited provincial conference which was supposed to sit last week, but had to be rescheduled to this weekend to allow branches to hold their Branch General Meetings and elect delegates to the conference.
Mashatile said that their supporters did not want to see the party’s members fighting amongst themselves as they were yearning for the return of the ANC they had always known, a renewed ANC.
“So comrades we have a moral and revolutionary duty not to fail South Africans, they know of no other home, the ANC is their only home. Let us make sure that we work hard with our people and I have no doubt comrades that as we move forward we are moving to an ANC victory in 2024.
“We must say asijiki (we are not going back), no retreat no surrender, siyaphambili (we are forging ahead). We will win that election, I am not saying we must, I am saying we will win that election uma sibambene (if we are united). If we are united nothing will defeat us,” Mashatile said.
He also urged delegates at the ANC’s 9th KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Conference in Durban to unite and disappoint the party’s detractors who had already written the ANC’s obituary ahead of the 2024 general elections.
“They think the ANC is dead and they will just be going to the funeral, let us disappoint them. Long live the African National Congress, long live,” Mashatile said to a vociferous response from the delegates.
He said that their task was not only to re-energise their base, but to reach out to all the people of South Africa by taking their campaign to every city, village, township, street corner, mosque, church, synagogue and other places of worship and factory floors to engage with workers.
“We must not only visit communities during elections and of course, comrades, this is a complaint when we campaign and the people say ‘we are seeing you now because it’s the elections’. We need to be with our communities at all times, neither should we seek to resolve the problems of our people during the elections.
“We must always be proactive, we must maintain a permanent presence amongst our communities. We must at all times speak the language of the people. As we prepare to undertake this work, let us be reminded that despite the decline in our recent electoral performance, the ANC remains the only hope for South Africans, especially the poor and those confined to the margins of our economy and society. They look up to us to do the right things and to provide decisive leadership in resolving the problems of the country,” Mashatile said.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE