RITA NDZANGA MEMORIAL
Thabo Mbeki tears into ANC’s succession debate, saying party keeps attracting ‘power-hungry’ leaders
As the ANC grapples with renewal in a bid to ‘self-correct’, former president Thabo Mbeki on Thursday warned that the renewal must be genuine and not for show — otherwise the party risks further punishment from the masses.
Former President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday launched yet another scathing attack on the ruling party while paying tribute to Struggle stalwart and trade unionist Rita Ndzanga, who died on Wednesday at the age of 88.
At a memorial service in Soweto, Ndzanga was remembered as a giant of democracy, an anti-apartheid struggle activist, and a fierce trade unionist who was at the forefront of organising and forming labour movements to resist apartheid brutality in the workplace in the 1950s.
Former president Thabo Mbeki said at the Soweto memorial service of Mama Rita Alice Ndzanga that people were saying, ‘Become the ANC that we know, undertake this renewal which has been decided by conference’. (Photo: Musa Masilela / ANC)
Mbeki said Ndzanga had served with diligence and dedication in the first, second and third democratic Parliaments. “It is therefore quite correct to say that she dedicated most of her life as an unflinching combatant of our liberation.”
Mbeki was delivering the keynote address to scores of people who gathered to honour Ndzanga. He said although there had been a warning against attacking the ANC in public, he would not stop pointing out the wrongs with which the movement continued to grapple.
Declining electoral support
He pointed to the ruling party’s declining electoral support in the 2021 local government elections which saw it get fewer than 50% of votes nationally.
“There is something that is very disturbing which has been happening over the last few years, that as we go to vote, the number of people in Soweto voting for the ANC keeps dropping. It keeps going down, including in the last elections.”
He concluded that the problem lay with members of the party and not the organisation itself.
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“There is something wrong with us. So, I am not criticising the ANC, I am criticising us. There is something wrong that we are doing and the population is saying, ‘you are behaving like the ANC we know, so something must change’.”
Succession debate
Mbeki also tore into the party’s conferences, which he said had repeatedly, without exception, been attracting the wrong people into the ANC’s ranks ever since it came into power in 1994.
“We are beginning to attract into our ranks people who joined the ANC because the ANC is a stepladder to power so that we can use that power to put money into our pockets — that’s what the veterans’ league is saying.”
He was critical of the party’s succession debate which has seen leaders raise their hands to lead in the party’s top six and in the highest decision-making body between conferences, the National Executive Committee.
“During the years of Struggle led by activists including Ndzanga, there was nobody who raised their hand for any leadership position.
“There was nobody who said, ‘I want to be a president’. There was nobody who said ‘ndikhetheni’ [pick me], ebengekho [there was none], but today, baninzi, ondikhetheni, [there are many contenders],” he said as the crowd chanted in agreement.
“Rita Ndzanga never said, ‘choose me’; what put her where she is, which we celebrate, was her selfless contribution to the Struggle, that’s what defined her as our leader that we celebrate today.”
The party faced a difficult task to find people of a similar calibre, he said.
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Renewal
Mbeki lauded the party’s decision to scrutinise those whom it allowed to run as mayoral candidates in the 2021 local government elections. Mayoral candidates were also subjected to interviews by the party’s top six, a move which Mbeki said was not only important, but spoke directly to renewal.
“We need to renew the ANC — if we don’t renew the ANC, it will die.”
Reflecting on the lower voter turnout during last year’s election, Mbeki said the ANC was fortunate that people opted to stay away instead of voting for opposition parties.
“Fortunately, they have not deserted us, they are saying to us: ‘Become the ANC that we know, undertake this renewal which has been decided by conference’.”
He said it should be expected that some members would question how the party intended to renew itself when it kept the people who joined for the wrong reasons.
Corruption
On members accused of corruption, Mbeki said it was increasingly difficult to see one ANC leader after another being implicated in wrongdoing as this tainted the image of the party.
He argued that the party itself was not corrupt, but had been infiltrated by the wrong people. “In the end, people say the ANC is corrupt. The ANC is not corrupt, but the ANC carries within its ranks people who are corrupt and to renew itself, it must get rid of those kinds of people.
“The process of renewal is very, very important, it is very urgent, and must happen. It’s going to be very challenging, but I think we owe it to Rita Ndzanga and others like her to do something about the ANC.
“The masses of our people know who is wrong, who is bad among us. So I am saying that therefore we have got this examiner, who is the masses of our people.
“It is them who are going to give us a mark to say we have passed. So I am therefore saying, when we engage in the process of renewal, it has to be genuine, not a show or pretence, because the people will discover that we are pretending and will punish us.”
Opposition parties
Mbeki said it was painful to see opposition political parties which boldly proclaimed that their existence was based on destroying the ANC and argued that in 2024, the ANC would not only lose votes, but be forced to govern South Africa through a coalition.
“Then we have to ask, what have we done to ourselves that we would have people with that kind of ‘courage’ determined to ensure that the ANC is destroyed? And that is not criticism of the ANC, that’s a reality we have to deal with.”
Mbeki said that as the ANC bade farewell to Ndzanga, “We are making a commitment to say we are going to rebuild the ANC, about which she was very worried.” DM
If you watched the speech, it was hardly a scathing attack. I bet he still will vote for the ANC in the next election if he is still alive. He lives in an oblivious world if he thinks the party is not corrupt except for some individuals in the ranks. This evil and dangerous snake called the ANC must have its head chopped off so the whole snake dies. It must cease to exist.
“Mbeki said it was increasingly difficult to see one ANC leader after another being implicated in wrongdoing as this tainted the image of the party.” All he cares about is the “image” – he could have suggested prosecution and sentencing the thieves to jail, which would do two things – 1) remove the crooks from public life 2) show the “masses of our people” that the ANC is serious.
Unfortunately that will never happen as there are just too many of them that are totally corrupt and they all look after each other – feeding from the tax payers trough.
Remember Tony Yengeni? On Mbeki’ s watch. And where was he when the deeply corrupt and unnecessary arms deal happened? In charge. So spare us the hypocrisy – you helped create this cadre of crooks. Mr Mbeki.
The ANC Mbeki wants is like a cult of docile true believers. That’s not what the country needs. Unfortunately former supporters behave like a lot of lapsed believers. They stay away from the church but yearn for its comfort and dont try the alternatives.
Too little, too late. The ANC is well past its sell-by-date. It’s dead. All well & good to emerge from your Rip van Winkle cave & use funerals as political rallying cries. How shameful! Mbeki presided over much that went wrong. He must take personal accountability as well. He seems like a man with a nostalgic yearning for a pre-Apartheid time when the ANC served as the broad church of many persuasions, all united in the fight against racial injustice. But since the ANC came into power, the jostling at the feeding trough assumed paramount purpose. Dear Ex-President, stop dissing opposition parties – agreed that some are just ANC trough feeders clothed in the usual paraphernalia of a slightly different party branding: T-shirts, flags, logos & European (sic)berets. There are others who genuinely present an alternative to the current malaise of maladministration, corruption, incompetence & just gangsterism & thuggery which the ANC has allowed & facilitated in our beautiful country. Stop lauding people for not voting rather than voting for an opposition party that has at least a proven track record of delivering where they govern. Abstention from voting is not something to be praised. It’s a cop-out, waiting for others to vote & then endlessly complaining. Votes driven by unthinking loyalty to an organisation that has been given nearly 3 decades to govern but has shown repeatedly its willingness to promote lawlessness, is all talk but no action is just plain insanity.