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A delegate stands near a banner during the National Conference of the African National Congress (ANC).
The re-run of the African National Congress (ANC)’s Provincial General Council (PGC) in Durban on Friday has been characterised by robust discussion. That is according to the Convenor of the National Executive Committee members deployed in KwaZulu-Natal, Dixon Masemola.
NEC deployees and a provincial task team have been working on rebuilding the party in the province, after the ANC’s support in last year’s provincial election dropped to 17% from 52.2% in 2019.
General councils of the party are an important mid-point stock-taking between elective conferences.
Masemola says they did not want next week’s national general council (NGC) in Gauteng to be marred by procedural issues, such as the nomination of branch delegates.
“So this re-run does not suggest any crisis. There’s no crisis at all. It’s just for us to perfect and sharpen the organisational processes and the systems. And the debates inside here are very robust, very intense. KwaZulu-Natal, as it is known to be a quite engaging province, I’m very much excited, and I’m looking forward to how this festival of ideas that started in the province is going to find expression at a national level. So there’s no crisis. It’s about strengthening our internal political organisational processes, validating them correctly so that the NGC does not actually get clouded by other related matters that we could have attended to in various provinces.”
The NEC also decides to extend the term of the provincial task team, which ran out at the end of November.
Masemola says this is to give effect to discussions about a roadmap towards the regional and provincial conferences
“Well, they have done their work to the extent they could. As I said in the last engagement. That renewal and reconstruction of our organisation is not a very simple political process, particularly here in KZN. And of course, they have done their work to the extent they could. So on Monday, the first, the NEC took a decision to extend the actual term of this PTT. After the NGC, in fact, in the meeting here, it was a very clear discussion on how do we roll out a roadmap towards regional conferences and as well as the provincial conference early next year.”
However, University of KwaZulu-Natal political scientist Zakhele Ndlovu believes the ANC is not out of the woods yet in KwaZulu-Natal.
“You know, there’s a lot of mistrust right now, a lot of people who are still in the ANC are being suspected of being members of the MKP. So I think that’s another difficulty that the ANC is having, is that people on the ground and even in the leadership positions who remain in the ANC, but deep down they sympathise with former president Jacob Zuma.”
This past week, the MK Party again won a previously ANC-controlled ward – this time in Mandeni – with more than 60 percent of the votes
