Former president Kgalema Motlanthe said the ANC constitution already makes provision that would ensure that membership is made up of people who are law abiding.
Motlanthe said people are saying the step-aside rule is likely to be reversed.
He said the ANC constitution itself says if a member is convicted by a court of law on any serious offence including corruption, that member should be expelled.
“We do need the leadership to be decisive because it’s a constitution and that is supreme law in terms of the organisation, members will get a message,” said Motlanthe.
He said the ANC constitution addresses problems that are popping up at this point in time and it deals with what constitutes offence.
“The ANC has over the years adopted various policies and many people who evaluate how it performs believe that it’s good at diagnosing problems and coming up with proposed solutions but performs very poorly when it comes to implementation. So part of this policy conference area of focus is how to ensure that going forward it also implements,” said Motlanthe.
He said the policy conference as a precursor to an elective conference makes it easier to the general membership to say now that we have the following policies, who amongst those members are better suited to give effect to these policies so that leadership is not just elected on basis of popularity but more on basis of capability to give effect to policies.
Mothlanthe said over the years in terms of criticism the ANC said it is capable of coming up with correct policies but the implementation is poor.
Addressing the conference, ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa said the ANC is at its weakest.
“It is true, the ANC is at its weakest in a sense that it is factionalised and part of the strength of the ANC over the years has always been home to a whole spectrum of political schools of thought and, however they are always united in pursuance of common goal. At the moment speaking in tongues, we need that cohesion around policy positions so that when you interview a member in Limpopo and they respond it should be within a framework as you would get a response in another province,” said Motlanthe.