ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says he believes that despite his party’s challenges, including electoral decline, “the ANC can still bear fruit”.
He was speaking in Pretoria on Monday at a gathering to commemorate the life and death of ANC struggle stalwart Solomon Mahlangu. Mbalula compared the ANC to a tree that has been “battered by storms” but remains standing.
“It has been battered by storms, some external, many of our own making. Branches have been weakened by neglect, its roots threatened by the termite of corruption and complacency, but it stands and it can bear fruit again; fruit that every South African can taste,” he said.
Mbalula described the ANC as an organisation associated with service delivery.
“Solomon Mahlangu died for an ANC of the people, a movement that draws its strength from service, its legitimacy from delivery, and its future from the unwavering commitment to a better life for all,” he said.
He said the ANC should ensure that a better life for all becomes a reality and not just a campaign promise to the electorate.
‘ANC is fighting every day’
Mbalula said the ANC’s forefathers had ushered South Africa into a democratic era, and the party now has the challenge of addressing issues of inequality among the different races in the country.
“Townships were dumping sites for apartheid, and they say we must not talk about apartheid. If we were equal, there would never be a suburb and a township; we would all be equal…The ANC is fighting every day to reverse that,” he said.
He said that, unlike the DA, the ANC is on the side of the poor and has done its best over the years to bring electricity to communities that have never had basic services such as electricity and working toilets.
“They told the people of Soweto when they came into power in Johannesburg that they would pay for their electricity debt. Whether they like it or not, this shows you why this vehicle – called the ANC – why it is important for it to be protected,” he said.
Mbalula also said it is the ANC that championed gender parity and issues of equality in workplaces and other sectors.
“We took this 50-50, and we also made it an ANC policy, when we formed the GNU in parliament, these other political parties gave us men when we asked them for names, the ANC brought women,” he said.
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‘The drop will be stronger in urban areas’
Despite Mbalula’s confidence in the ANC, political analyst Andre Duvenhage said the ANC is fast becoming a rural party.
“The ANC has control over the traditional leadership in the rural areas; to that extent, they are able to mobilise that support,” Duvenhage told The Citizen in a recent interview.
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“I have no doubt that they will be able to perform better in the rural areas, and that excludes KZN [KwaZulu-Natal] because that is a dynamic on its own.
“But we must also take into consideration that we are expecting a drop in support for the ANC, the drop will be stronger in the urban areas and in the metropolis than in the traditional rural environment,” he said.
