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 Jacob Zuma’s pledge that the ANC would take “urgent and practical” steps to restore its “core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline” was the only part of his two-hour speech that received any real applause.
Zuma began his delivery of the party’s centenary January 8 statement at 3.30pm and concluded two hours later. It was long on the history of the continent’s oldest liberation movement, and frank about national challenges such as education, but was uninspiring and short on vision.
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.
A 54-page booklet contained the centenary January 8 statement (38 pages long) and messages of support from the Women’s League, Cosatu and the SACP.
There was none from the ANC Youth League – but it could not be confirmed whether this was by accident, or design.
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.
The ANC Youth League saw this as a bid to muzzle it, while Cosatu and the Women’s League were also reported to be unhappy.
Zuma read out a summarised version of the statement. While his delivery – from prepared text – has vastly improved since his inauguration as the country’s president in 2009, boredom soon set in, as the bulk of the speech spelt out the ANC’s history and achievements over the past 100 years.
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.
Zuma committed the party to a number of measures, including making it more professional and modern in its operations.
During the course of this year the ANC would take “urgent and practical steps” to:
l Rebuild the party’s machinery by “revitalising grassroot structures”.
l Put the ANC “once more at the forefront of progressive forces for change”.
l Fast-track the development of cadres, “young and old”.
l Ensure that “our programme of transforming our country is accelerated and taken to new heights”.
l Restore the ANC’s “core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline”.
l Put education and skills “at the forefront of the transformation and development agenda”.
l Deepen the ANC’s “contribution to the renewal of the African continent and the progressive forces in the world”.
l Professionalise and modernise the ANC’s operations.
While the party had – in its almost 18 years in government – got rid of institutionalised racism, developing a sense of nationhood – a “common vision of the future” had been slow, Zuma said.
He repeated his as yet unrealised 2009 promise to launch a national dialogue.
“We continue to have different and differing perspectives on the processes unfolding in our country.
“Despite 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,” Zuma said.
These included the “persistence of poverty, old and new forms of inequality” and “patriarchal relations” that continued to marginalise women. He also acknowledged “ongoing challenges” in delivering services.
Also, the extent to which the party’s economic reform strategy was succeeding in building a competitive, fast-growing economy that would create jobs and spread wealth “needs to be constantly assessed”.
While access to education had improved, Zuma noted the “huge challenge of the quality of education and throughput rates at all levels of the… system”.
“This constitutes a crisis, with South Africa performing poorly in comparison with other peer countries on nearly every single education indicator,” he said.
Rating the ANC’s achievements against the “litmus test” of the aims of the Freedom Charter, Zuma said South Africa now belonged to all who lived in it, and the people governed.
In terms of equal rights for all, unequal access to resources meant this was true more in theory than in practice.
When it came to the people sharing the country’s 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.
The ANC Youth League’s 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’s next major event – its policy conference in June.
