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Reuters<\/p>\n
Former president Thabo Mbeki, left, shares a laugh with suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, right, during the ANCs centenary celebration in Bloemfontein yesterday. Thousands of ANC supporters, young and old, attended the events, and the centenary flame was later lit to mark the historic day. \tPicture: Reuters<\/p>\n
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Gaye Davis <\/p>\n
Political Bureau<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma\u2019s pledge that the ANC would take \u201curgent and practical\u201d steps to restore its \u201ccore values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline\u201d was the only part of his two-hour speech that received any real applause. <\/p>\n Zuma began his delivery of the party\u2019s centenary January 8 statement at 3.30pm and concluded two hours later. It was long on the history of the continent\u2019s oldest liberation movement, and frank about national challenges such as education, but was uninspiring and short on vision. <\/p>\n Rumoured threats that the ANC Youth League would attempt to disrupt proceedings failed to materialise, although the arrival of its leader, Julius Malema, prompted massive cheers. <\/p>\n A 54-page booklet contained the centenary January 8 statement (38 pages long) and messages of support from the Women\u2019s League, Cosatu and the SACP. <\/p>\n There was none from the ANC Youth League \u2013 but it could not be confirmed whether this was by accident, or design. <\/p>\n Last week party chairwoman Baleka Mbete announced a break in the long-standing tradition of the allies and leagues delivering their own statements at January 8 rallies. <\/p>\n The ANC Youth League saw this as a bid to muzzle it, while Cosatu and the Women\u2019s League were also reported to be unhappy. <\/p>\n Zuma read out a summarised version of the statement. While his delivery \u2013 from prepared text \u2013 has vastly improved since his inauguration as the country\u2019s president in 2009, boredom soon set in, as the bulk of the speech spelt out the ANC\u2019s history and achievements over the past 100 years. <\/p>\n While laudable and relevant, a history lesson in the baking sun was not the ideal. It was only when he came to dealing with the party itself, and its need to reflect on how it will ensure its future growth, if not survival, that there was any real response from the crowd. <\/p>\n Zuma committed the party to a number of measures, including making it more professional and modern in its operations. <\/p>\n During the course of this year the ANC would take \u201curgent and practical steps\u201d to: <\/p>\n l Rebuild the party\u2019s machinery by \u201crevitalising grassroot structures\u201d. <\/p>\n l Put the ANC \u201conce more at the forefront of progressive forces for change\u201d. <\/p>\n l Fast-track the development of cadres, \u201cyoung and old\u201d. <\/p>\n l Ensure that \u201cour programme of transforming our country is accelerated and taken to new heights\u201d. <\/p>\n l Restore the ANC\u2019s \u201ccore values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline\u201d. <\/p>\n l Put education and skills \u201cat the forefront of the transformation and development agenda\u201d. <\/p>\n l Deepen the ANC\u2019s \u201ccontribution to the renewal of the African continent and the progressive forces in the world\u201d. <\/p>\n l Professionalise and modernise the ANC\u2019s operations. <\/p>\n While the party had \u2013 in its almost 18 years in government \u2013 got rid of institutionalised racism, developing a sense of nationhood \u2013 a \u201ccommon vision of the future\u201d had been slow, Zuma said. <\/p>\n He repeated his as yet unrealised 2009 promise to launch a national dialogue. <\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to have different and differing perspectives on the processes unfolding in our country. <\/p>\n \u201cDespite the progress we have made, there remain deep faultlines in our society that continue to undermine our vision of a united non-racial and non-sexist South Africa,\u201d Zuma said. <\/p>\n These included the \u201cpersistence of poverty, old and new forms of inequality\u201d and \u201cpatriarchal relations\u201d that continued to marginalise women. He also acknowledged \u201congoing challenges\u201d in delivering services. <\/p>\n Also, the extent to which the party\u2019s economic reform strategy was succeeding in building a competitive, fast-growing economy that would create jobs and spread wealth \u201cneeds to be constantly assessed\u201d. <\/p>\n While access to education had improved, Zuma noted the \u201chuge challenge of the quality of education and throughput rates at all levels of the\u2026 system\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cThis constitutes a crisis, with South Africa performing poorly in comparison with other peer countries on nearly every single education indicator,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Rating the ANC\u2019s achievements against the \u201clitmus test\u201d of the aims of the Freedom Charter, Zuma said South Africa now belonged to all who lived in it, and the people governed. <\/p>\n In terms of equal rights for all, unequal access to resources meant this was true more in theory than in practice. <\/p>\n When it came to the people sharing the country\u2019s wealth, un-mined mineral wealth had been transferred to the state on behalf of the people as a whole and a government-owned mining company had been launched. <\/p>\n The ANC Youth League\u2019s call for the nationalisation of the mines and other sectors of the economy is among the issues expected to generate heated debate at the party\u2019s next major event \u2013 its policy conference in June. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reuters Former president Thabo Mbeki, left, shares a laugh with suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, right, during the ANCs centenary celebration in Bloemfontein yesterday. Thousands of ANC supporters, young and old, attended the events, and the centenary flame was later lit to mark the historic day. Picture: Reuters Gaye Davis Political Bureau PRESIDENT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-6854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}