By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) deputy president David Mabuza delivered a scathing organisational report on Saturday.
Mabuza delivered the report during the ANC’s 55th national elective conference at Nasrec.
He cautioned the party about its declining electoral performance, saying the leadership should focus on strengthening coalition strategies, “as these have become our new reality”.
The conference should be preoccupied with the ANC’s decline in electoral fortunes, he said.
The ANC declined from 62% in 2014 to 57% in 2018 and also took a battering in the 2021 local government elections.
Mabuza told delegates that the ANC only had a majority in 174 of the 257 municipalities across the country.
“Where the ANC is in outright control, these are mainly the poorest municipalities. Many are not financially viable, which has a massive impact on our ability to deliver services and local development.”
He said that, apart from the declining electoral support for the ANC, low voter turnout was equally worrying.
During the last five years, the ANC had not managed to build a permanent professional electoral capacity at national, regional and provincial level offices, he said.
Mabuza stressed that, as a result of declining electoral support, the ANC had a smaller share of public funding for political parties.
He said the introduction of the Political Party Funding Act and the difficult economic environment had damaged the party’s funds.
Membership
Mabuza said the party’s membership had declined by 33% over the past 10 years.
In 2012, the ANC had recorded more than 1.2 million members, but as of 2022, it was at a low of 661 498, he said.
“Organising in urban areas is a major challenge for the ANC in all provinces. The bigger the concentration of people, the bigger the challenge, as the election results and membership figures indicate.”
The ANC bled most members in Mpumalanga, followed by the North West and the Free State. It had lost the least supporters in Limpopo, the report noted.
Integrity Commission
The ANC’s Integrity Commission says a total of 55 members were found to have brought the party into disrepute over the past five years.
The commission is a structure, without powers, appointed to guard the ANC’s image against reputational damage from its own members.
The report says the number of ANC members being referred to the commission has increased exponentially over the past five years.
It says there is a potential prospect of the commission engaging with a further 97 ANC members who were implicated in the State Capture Commission report.
The document also acknowledges that the commission is hamstrung from fully conducting its duties due to not having permanent staff assigned to it.
A full report on the decisions taken by the commission is expected to be delivered during the course of the conference by chairperson George Mashamba.
At 5pm on Saturday, conference proceedings were under way as more than 4,000 delegates were locked inside the plenary where the financial report, strategy and tactics documents were presented.
The outgoing deputy president had to deliver the report because secretary-general Ace Magashule is suspended and his deputy Jessie Duarte died earlier this year.