ANC leaders deliver sharp diagnosis of party’s electoral decline

African National Congress (ANC) leaders have delivered a sharp diagnosis of the party’s electoral decline, blaming corruption within its ranks, state capture and the poor standard of its membership.

Monday marked the first day of the ANC’s fifth National General Council (NGC), which is being held at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.

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The NGC is a midterm review of the ANC’s progress in implementing the resolutions adopted at its 55th elective conference in 2022.

While delivering the midterm review report, ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula said that recent election results clearly show the party is slowly losing public faith.

“Against this backdrop, the ANC has articulated a renewal mission structured around two interlinked objectives - the first is to reroute the ANC among the people as their servant with ethical and capable cadres working alongside communities to address their daily struggles, the second is to harness the natural and human endowments of SA to accelerate the resolution of [ending] unemployment, poverty and inequality and to build a sovereign non-racist, non-sexist, democratic prosperous state. To achieve this, the organisation must strengthen its grassroots structures.”

With the local government elections coming up soon, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa said that the party needs to get closer to the people.

“In the last elections, comrades, if we are to be honest with each other, our door-to-door culture was not at its best. We did not do vigorous door-to-door and as a result on election, that’s why we saw so many people staying away from the polls and, in part, it was largely because they had never been touched by the ANC visiting their homes and various locales they go to. We must ensure we go back to basics, go back to what has made us a strong organisation: being strongly connected with our people.”