ANC KZN elective conference delegates at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban. Picture: Nqobile Mbonambi/ African News Agency (ANA)
Durban — ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile has appealed to the ruling party’s rank and file to focus on regaining lost ground with the electorate ahead of the 2024 national elections.
Delivering the opening address to mark the start of the ANC KZN elective conference on Friday evening, Mashatile warned that the ANC’s political opponents were already predicting the ruling party’s demise, based on the poor results in last year’s local government elections.
He conceded that the ANC found itself in a challenging period where its values were being eroded and undermined, resulting in a trust deficit of its leaders by society.
“As a movement we are faced with the very real possibility of losing the moral high ground and our position as the trusted leader of society. Accordingly, we must act now to arrest this decline, by renewing the ANC,” said Mashatile.
The treasurer-general pointed out that many ANC structures were in a poor state with many of them focused on internal organisational conflicts, factionalism and furthering the self-interest of individual leaders rather than the aspirations of communities they are meant to serve.
This, he added, had created space for the ANC’s ideological opponents to gain ground in its traditional strongholds and more substantively.
“This is characteristic of the social distance that has emerged between our movement and the people of South Africa. This social distance was evident in the outcome of the November local government elections, last year,” he continued.
According to Mashatile, returning to old values of unity, honesty, hard work, selflessness, service, sacrifice, democratic centralism, criticism and self-criticism – values that have carried our movement for over a century of its existence would yield positive results.
“We know that some of our opponents are saying the ANC is dead and have written our obituary, let us disappoint them in 2024 by starting to work towards the victory from now on,” Mashatile told delegates.
He also called for unity among members, but stressed that unity did not amount to a blank cheque where members and leaders did as they pleased.
“Unity is the bedrock upon which the ANC was founded. It is sacrosanct. However, building unity does not mean unity at all costs, to the detriment and disregard of our principles. Building unity does not mean unity in defence of wrongdoing or corrupt practices,” Mashatile stressed.
The ninth provincial elective conference started later than scheduled, owing to challenges with the registration for some delegates.
THE MERCURY