The voice of our members must be heard

This week, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress held its last normal meeting. Naturally, it spent a considerable amount of time finalising the preparations for the December, Stellenbosch 51st National Conference of our movement.

Unfortunately, the NEC also had to spend time discussing matters relating to the ANC in the province of the Eastern Cape. This was because problems had arisen in the context of the election of members of our movement to the regional and provincial executive committees of the ANC in this part of our country.

The issue arose from reports that the delegates to both the O.R. Tambo regional and the Eastern Cape provincial conferences, had not been properly elected by the branches of our movement. In the presence, and with the participation of ANC leaders from the Eastern Cape, the NEC concluded that the reports it had received were correct.

Accordingly, it nullified both conferences, regional and provincial. With regard to the provincial leadership, it resolved that the leadership elected at the previous provincial conference, headed by Makhenkesi Stofile, should continue to hold office, until the next provincial conference is convened in three months.

Technically, the matter at issue is straightforward and easy to understand. It has to do with ensuring that all representatives of the movement are chosen by all or the majority of our members. This means that branch and other meetings that elect such representatives must be properly constituted, be of audited branches and other legitimate ANC structures, and must meet the quorum benchmarks that are laid down.

This is done to ensure that our movement continues to sustain democratic practices within its ranks. In this regard, the voice of the people is the voice of the members of our organisation. It is this voice that determines who the representatives and leaders of the ANC shall be, and not any factions or sectarian groupings that might exist within the movement.

The information considered by the NEC confirmed that the delegates at both the O.R. Tambo regional, and Eastern Cape provincial conferences had not been elected by our membership as a whole. They did not emerge out of a process of the exercise of the voice of the people. They were chosen through processes that excluded the majority of our members.

Our National Headquarters, Luthuli House, is willing to demonstrate this to any honest person who cares to inquire. These honest persons would have the unfettered liberty to interview any genuine member or institution of the ANC for them to arrive at their own conclusions about the information considered by the NEC. Luthuli House would, within its possibilities, facilitate the contact with any ANC member or institution such inquirers might wish to access.

As a consequence of the flawed processes we have mentioned, the regional and provincial leadership collectives chosen by the recent unconstitutional conferences could not be allowed to hold office, condemned to rely on undemocratic mandates.

To defend the democratic constitution, regulations and traditions of the ANC, the NEC took the correct decision to defend its internal democracy. Together with its members representing its Eastern Cape leadership collective, it resolved to prepare for the exercise of this internal democracy at reconvened and properly constituted branch, regional and provincial meetings and conferences that will be held early in 2003.

It also decided to take the necessary action to ensure that the Eastern Cape delegates to the 51st National Conference, like all others from other provinces, are chosen by properly constituted branch meetings of our movement.

All this has nothing to do with who should be elected as delegates to our conferences at any level, or placed in executive positions by these conferences. Accordingly, it may very well be that the properly constituted Eastern Cape branch, regional and provincial meetings and conferences that will be held next year will choose the same delegates and executive committees they chose this year.

The new 2002 NEC will gladly accept this outcome, in the same way that the outgoing 1997 NEC would have accepted it, if it represented the voice of the people, as defined above. Like the 1997 NEC, the 2002 NEC will continue to insist that the legitimacy of our leadership collectives in the eyes of our membership is central to the cohesion, moral and political integrity and functioning of our movement.

Any sectarian manipulation that confers undemocratic power to any particular grouping within our movement, will, by definition, split our movement into hostile factions that would both destroy our movement and render it incapable of leading the masses of our people in the continuing struggle to achieve the objectives of the national democratic revolution.

Without asserting that there was any such sectarian manipulation in the Eastern Cape, the NEC made the determination that the various branch, regional and provincial processes had not been expressive of the views and opinions of the totality of our membership in this part of our country.

Because these were not inclusive in their nature, objectively they would have the effect of splitting our movement into hostile factions that would both destroy our movement and render it incapable of leading the masses of our people in the continuing struggle to achieve the objectives of the national democratic revolution.

In terms of its responsibilities, the NEC would never knowingly allow this to happen. This is the meaning of the decisions it took earlier this week. All future genuine leaders of the ANC will take the same positions. These positions will enjoy the support of all genuine members of our movement and the millions of our people who love the ANC as their tried and tested mother body, representative and leader.

The media has quoted members of our broad democratic movement, including the ANC, who are said to have denounced the decisions of the NEC. This happened even before these decisions were announced through accredited spokespersons of our movement.

This raises the critical question about whose interests these supposed members of the ANC and our broad democratic movement represent. Obviously, such genuine members would never condone the subversion of internal democracy within the ANC.

Neither would they support and defend undemocratic processes that would inevitably result in splitting our movement into hostile factions that would both destroy our movement and render it incapable of leading the masses of our people in the continuing struggle to achieve the objectives of the national democratic revolution.

If the media reports are correct, the members who chose publicly to adopt positions in favour of these outcomes will have to explain themselves through the processes provided for in our constitution and regulations. The appropriate constitutional bodies will have to decide what the response of the movement should be to those who carry our membership cards, and yet elect to act against decisions of the constitutional structures of our movement, properly arrived at.

As we would expect, there are others in our country who have sought to question the decisions taken by the NEC. These have boldly asserted that ours as the ANC is "a strange democracy".

Among other things, they say the NEC decisions raise questions about the commitment of our movement to internal democracy and the so-called proper role of our national leaders with relation to our provincial leaders. They claim that there are suspicions that our national leadership was uncomfortable with the election results of the now nullified unconstitutional Eastern Cape provincial conference.

They say that there are rumours that ANC Provincial Chairperson, Makhenkesi Stofile, an elected member of our NEC and member of our national leadership, and former Treasurer General, had fallen out with this leadership. They say that they must assume that an old stalwart of our movement, Member of Parliament and former Robben Island prisoner, Mluleki George, who stood for the position of Provincial Chairperson, must have done so because he had backers from among the most senior leaders of our organisation.

They claim that there is a possibility that the President of our movement favoured the removal of Chairperson Stofile from his position. They speculate that there may be unease among our national leadership about how the Eastern Cape delegates to the 51st National Conference might vote, especially with regard to the top positions. They say this relates, in particular, to the possible emergence of what is described as an anti-Mbeki bloc.

They assert that the ANC has been damaged by the events in the Eastern and has an obligation to repair the damage. Presumably, given the logic of all these arguments, this refers not so much to the events in the Eastern Cape, as to the response of the NEC to these events.

These projections of the ANC that re-surfaced this week are part of the regular armoury used by our opponents for a long period of time. Clearly, old habits die hard. In our case, they seem particularly stubborn, and may even reappear through the activities and statements of people who wear our T-shirts. Perhaps, this too confirms that old habits die hard.

For many years, our opponents have striven to propagate the false idea that our movement is intrinsically characterised by division and disunity. They have sought to convince all and sundry that our membership enjoys neither the practice nor the tradition of internal democracy.

They have tried to project our leadership as a self-serving cabal that uses the membership of the movement as mindless cannon fodder, while it pursues selfish interests that have nothing to do with the realisation of the aspirations of the masses of our people. Accordingly, this leadership has consistently been represented as manipulative, autocratic, unreasonably sensitive to criticism, and hostile to the expression of the voice of the people, as defined above.

As has happened with regard to the recent events in the Eastern Cape, our political opponents do not bother in any way whatsoever to substantiate their allegations with facts. Where the truth threatens the success of the campaign of our opponents, they do not hesitate to suppress or corrupt the truth. For example, with regard to recent events relating to the Eastern Cape, they charge that the leaked letter to the President of the ANC, written by Mkhuseli Jack, and allegedly other similar letters, was requested and prompted by the Head of the ANC Presidency and Head of the ANC Information Department, Smuts Ngonyama.

This is despite the accurate and unequivocal public statements made by Mkhuseli Jack that the letter he wrote to the President represents his own views, freely expressed, in the same way that, everyday, both South Africans and foreigners write freely to the President of the ANC.

The reality, which we have experienced for a very long period of time, is that our opponents will not allow facts and the truth to stand in the way of their campaign to weaken and destroy the ANC. We must expect that these will continue their old habit of falsifying and misrepresenting reality. As before, they are ready to spin-doctor the messages of hope contained in our initiatives, and convert them into a present and immediate danger threatening the well being of our people.

As we know, the period immediately preceding our National Conference will, in part, be characterised by an intensified negative campaign targeting our movement and leadership. The unfortunate and unacceptable developments in the Eastern Cape, which occasioned the thorough discussions and decisions of the NEC, provided a convenient and timely platform for the escalation of this campaign.

The fact, however, is that, as before, it will fail in its purposes of dividing, weakening and destroying our movement. It will not succeed to alienate the masses of our people from the movement and leadership they know from their daily and historical experience as the formation whose members sacrificed their lives, which is prepared to pay any price to defend and advance the interests of the people.

Our opponents will not relent. Neither will we. In the end, the truth will triumph. So will the objective we pursue of a better life for all our people, black and white.

Out of the Stellenbosch 51st National Conference of the ANC will issue the united message from properly elected delegates of the ANC that, as we prepare to celebrate, on January 8th, the first year of the decade that will lead us to our centenary in 2012, we shall, in unity, continue to serve the people of South Africa. Our members in and from the Eastern Cape will be part of this united force, as they have been for 90 years.

51^st National Conference

Branches ready themselves for Stellenbosch

With less than a month to go to the ANC's 51st National Conference at the University of Stellenbosch, structures of the movement are readying themselves for this historic event.

For months, branches, regions and provinces have been discussing the policies and programmes of the organisation. These discussions culminated in the ANC National Policy Conference in September, which adopted a series of draft resolutions for debate in branches and for decision at the National Conference.

Branches have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss these draft resolutions, to elect their delegates to National Conference, and to make nominations for the National Executive Committee (NEC).

The result of this period of heightened activity within the ANC across the country will be that the 51st National Conference will be, as it is intended, truly a conference of the membership of the ANC. Delegates attending the Conference from branches are therefore likely to be well prepared to engage in the debates at Conference and to confidently represent the views and positions of the members who sent them to Stellenbosch.

It also means that the great majority of members, who would not be able to attend the Conference themselves, will nevertheless be well versed in the issues that will be placed before Conference and will have had an opportunity to express themselves on these issues.

The discussions in structures are not yet over, however. A number of other issues have been referred to branches and other structures for discussion.

This weekend the NEC is distributing to structures proposed amendments to the ANC Constitution, which - among other things - aim to bring the basic document of the organisation in line with changes in the alignment of ANC structures at branch and regional level.

The previous National Conference, in Mafikeng in 1997, charged the NEC with re-aligning ANC structures to the final municipal demarcations. Following the December 2000 local government elections, the organisation began this process. After almost two years in which new ward-based branches and district-based regions were launched, the ANC finds itself better equipped to organise and mobilise the South African masses around the challenges of local governance and development. Now branches are being asked to consider proposed amendments to bring the ANC Constitution in line with this reality.

Another areas of proposed changes is to strengthen the existing provision which encourages greater participation of women in ANC structures. This is part of the effort to reach the objective of the full representation of women in all decision-making structures.

While the existing Constitution calls for a representation for women of no less than a third of members of all ANC structures, the proposed amendment makes provision for practical mechanisms to ensure that this occurs in elections for all executive structures at national, provincial, regional and local level.

In line with the increased responsibilities of regional structures, particularly with respect to local government, the proposed changes aim to clarify the powers and functions of Regional Executive Committees.

In the next week, the NEC will also be distributing a draft preface to the 1997 Strategy and Tactics document. The Strategy and Tactics of the ANC defines the broad objectives of the struggle and defines the forces which are the main drivers of change and those forces opposed to change.

If adopted by National Conference, the draft preface will be added to the 1997 document, confirming the correctness of its analysis, and outlining significant developments over the past five years and the key priorities for the organisation in the current phase.

Branches have also been discussing nominations for the National Executive Committee. Already four provinces have held general councils to consolidate the nominations from branches into a single list. The ANC Youth League held a meeting of its NEC to do the same thing. The remaining provinces, except for the Eastern Cape, and the ANC Women's League are due to complete their processes in the coming days. Because of problems with the holding of Branch General Meetings in the Eastern Cape and the nullification of the Provincial Conference, the completion of the province's nominations for the NEC may take a bit longer.

Once all provinces and both leagues have submitted their nominations, the Electoral Commission will produce a consolidated list of all nominations for circulation to structures. Delegates at Conference will have a final opportunity to make further nominations from the floor, subject to these nominations being seconded by at least 25 percent of voting delegates.

All the processes of the last few months have not only confirmed, but have served to strengthen the long-standing traditions of internal democracy and debate which have been the hallmarks of the ANC over decades.

Although it is still some weeks before the first delegate arrives at the University of Stellenbosch, the 51st National Conference of the ANC has already notched up some considerable achievements.

More Information:

• 51st National Conference page

Strategy and Tactics

Building on the foundation for a better life

The ANC's definition of what is meant by a better life for all remains unchanged since the organisation held its 50th National Conference in Mafikeng five years ago, according to the draft preface to the 1997 Strategy and Tactics document.

The draft preface, which will be distributed for discussion to ANC structures next week, confirms the basic analysis of the 1997 document, while outlining significant developments over the last five years and highlighting challenges for the organisation now and into the future.

While the 1997 document attempted to capture the new reality of the post-1994 period, and its implications for the ANC and the struggle for democratic change, the draft preface of 2002 seeks to deepen and sharpen that analysis.

As the draft preface notes, this is an ongoing process: "The significance of this new situation will take years to clarify itself in the mind of all the social forces in our country and beyond our borders."

The draft preface says the 1997 Strategy and Tactics correctly characterised the post-1994 epoch. Many changes since then have only served to confirm the basic conclusions of that document.

By the last Conference in Mafikeng, the ANC had begun building on the foundation for a better life. The 51st National Conference is expected to confirm that we are now further along this road, by asserting this as a phase in which we have started to experience people's power in action.

Among the chief features of this epoch is that for the first time African people and blacks in general are taking charge of their destiny and, together with all other democrats, they "command the authority of a state legitimately and popularly at the helm of the management of social change".

While the 1997 document correctly argues that national liberation must involve programmes to improve the quality of life of especially the poor, the draft preface suggests that it does not adequately deal with how this relates to economic relations within the society.

"A critical element of the programme for national emancipation should be the elimination of apartheid property relations," it says.

And while the 1997 document correctly emphasised material transformation -political, social and economic - fundamental change also demands the "redefinition of the outlook, cultural values and moral attributes that characterise South African society".

"This is the realm of ideology - the battle of ideas - in which new values and mores that place humanism above greed and individual selfish interest need to be strongly asserted," the draft preface says.

New opportunities have emerged since 1997 in the global arena. These include the formation of the African Union and adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, the outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and the better position of the interests of the South within the work of a number of multilateral international bodies.

It is in this context, the draft prefaces notes, that the standing of South Africa has been enhanced, at the core of the efforts of developing countries and Africa in particular to reverse the unequal power relations that define global politics and economics today.

The draft preface stresses that an important element of the programme for transformation should be is the development and preservation of the country's human resources. This includes the development of skills which are geared towards the needs of the economy and of society at large, and comprehensive strategies to address the challenge of unemployment.

It also notes the progression of the AIDS epidemic, and the evolution of weapons to combat it, over the last five years. "Our programme of transformation should not only acknowledge this danger; but it must also put the campaign against it at the top of our agenda," it says.

The draft preface looks ahead to the 'Second Decade of Freedom', from 2004-2014, and the period leading to the centenary of the founding of the ANC, which will be in 2012, noting that the detailed programmes of the movement will need to outline the expectations, possibilities and broad targets being pursued in this period. "This will demands a clearer understanding of the sequencing of policy actions and the time lags between policy determination, implementation and actual impact," it says.

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