By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) celebrated its 112th birthday on Saturday — 8 January — in the face of the greatest threat to its dominance of South African politics since it came to power in 1994.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa outlined the ruling party’s message to its supporters at Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga,
The statement has historically been used by the ANC to lay out its programme of action for the year ahead. This dates back to its days in exile when the statement was communicated on its Radio Freedom to members and supporters inside South Africa.
In the post-apartheid context, the statement has provided the ANC with a way of taking stock of the past year’s achievements and failures and to outline its policy priorities for the 12 months ahead.
The ANC marks 30 years in power with the country celebrating 30 years of independence and democracy.
Renewing the ANC, reconstructing the economy to create more jobs and growth, improving basic services and infrastructure, load shedding, and tackling crime and corruption, were key issues that he promised to address.
Ramaphosa said less people now go to bed hungry due to government grants.
“Twenty eight million South Africans get assistance from the ANC-led government to deal with poverty, that is one of the great achievements of our government to help our people deal with poverty.”
Ramaphosa said critics who say the lives of average people have not improved since 1994 are simply lying.
“Whether they like it or not, the South Africa of today is different and vastly improved from the South Africa of 30 years ago. And that has been brought about by the ANC.”
During his speech, Ramaphosa said the ANC was targeting a decisive victory in the 2024 general elections.
He called on all party members to tirelessly campaign to retain power and has tasked the ANC Youth League to mobilise young South Africans to register to vote.
“The immediate task of all members and supporters of the ANC, our alliance partners, the mass democratic movement, and progressive civil society is to mobilise all South Africans, especially the youth, to register to vote so they can exercise their hard-won right to shape the future of our country,” he said.
He further said a clear vision of the ANC-led government in the next five years will be known when they launch their manifesto next month.
“The ANC will launch its Election Manifesto next month setting out in detail our vision and programme for taking our country forward during the next five years, and beyond,” he said.
Ramaphosa criticised former ANC members who founded new parties, labelling them worse than right-wing parties.
“We know that there are social and political forces that are working very hard to undermine gains of our freedom that we have made over the past 30 years. They want to stop the people’s march to a united democratic and prosperous country. The anti-transformation forces are converging in pacts, forming various pacts while seeking to fragment the forces of change through splinter groups and smaller parties that want to contest the ANC,” he said.
“They start off as factional groups and leave the movement when we act against them and go on become worse than right-wing opposition parties because they come through as snakes that are ready to bite people. They masquerade as more radical than ANC, but they’re here to deprive ANC of ability to use state power to continue with transformation.”
Ramaphosa said despite the challenges, the ruling party takes pride in what it called the improvement of the lives of many South Africans over the past 30 years.
“In 2024, we will focus on working together with the alliance and all sectors of society to accelerate the reconstruction of our economy, to deliver quality basic services, infrastructure, renew the ANC and society.”
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Video Courtesy of MYANC.