By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) launches its 2021 local government election manifesto this afternoon.
The two biggest opposition parties, the DA and the EFF, have already launched their manifestos both focusing on promises around improving service delivery and exploiting the many failings of ANC-led administrations at local government level.
As a result, the ANC is left with owning up to its failures and promising to do better. During a media briefing two weeks ago on the ANC’s readiness for the upcoming local government elections, the party’s Head of Elections, Fikile Mbalula urged citizens to again place their trust in the governing party as it was in a process of renewal and “dealing decisively” with all the bad apples in its ranks.
The same sentiments were echoed by President Cyril Ramaphosa when he was addressed a pre-manifesto launch media briefing in Parktown, Johannesburg, on Sunday evening.
Ramaphosa said the party had made “mistakes” in the past, but believed that South Africans were awake to the efforts that the party had undergone to try and rectify those failings.
He also placed a lot of focus on the ANC’s new candidate selection process saying the party was one of the few that have really engaged communities and got them to endorse candidates of their choosing, instead of merely imposing individuals preferred by the party as was the case in other parties.
The ANC president also stressed that popularity was no longer a commodity used by the party in selecting its mayoral candidates as this has in the past led to scenarios where a candidate fails in terms of their administrative and leadership skills once in office.
As a result, the ANC has this time around preferred to thoroughly interview all their mayoral prospects and placed having a post-matric qualification as an advantage.
On Sunday night, Ramaphosa also spoke at length regarding young people now having been extensively included into the candidates’ list with 25% of the nearly 10 000 candidates the ANC will be fielding across the country, being young people.
He also spoke of inclusiveness saying 46% of the candidates where women and there was a great representation of people living with disabilities as well as members of the LGPTIQ community.
Livestream Video Below:
Video Courtesy of SABC.