ANC NGC kicks off as party reviews its performance

The African National Congress (ANC) National General Council (NGC) is set to kick off on Monday amid talks of succession battles within the organisation.

This will be the party's 5th NGC since its inception.

The NGC is neither an elective conference nor a platform for policy adoption.

However, it is used as a mid-term progress report on the state of the organisation.

ANC NGCs have usually been used as a barometer for factions to test their popularity ahead of elective conferences.

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It is no surprise that, ahead of the NGC, there have been talks of who will succeed the party's current president, Cyril Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa's second term as ANC president comes to an end in 2027, and there are already some within the organisation eyeing his seat.

One of those is the party’s Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula, who dismissed any succession talk at a state of readiness media briefing on Sunday.

"This general council is not going to discuss succession. That talk belongs to the branches at that stage relevant to it, which will be in 2027. This general council is about preparing the ANC to win elections, consolidating renewal of the ANC."

On the agenda for the three-day NGC is the political overview of the ANC, policy implementation, and governance matters.