ANC must prevail
DEPUTY President Kgalema Motlanthe says there is a need for the ANC to renew itself.
Addressing a meeting at the University of South Africa in Pretoria on Friday, Motlanthe said the party needs to re-emphasise its core values while guarding against being corroded by the sins of incompetence that have plagued post-colonial liberation movements elsewhere.
"The ANC therefore needs to continue acting in a manner that upholds its history and prestige while at the same time taking active steps to renew itself," he says.
"Once the ANC begins to bemoan the challenges facing society, instead of tackling them, it can no longer be seen as a leading force and an agent of change."
He said the ANC has to work hard to ensure that it emerges in this current period fully consistent in outlook and orientation with the character of a modern, progressive party. He says the ANC has managed to tackle all challenges and will pause to find a way of accommodating any particular phase of the struggle.
"Losing sight of the twist and turns, as well as ebbs and flows of history would have drained the ANC of political currency, driving it to the wall. Practical experience over the past few years requires that we re-look the issues of organisational systems and processes with the objective of strengthening existing internal democracy and leadership systems," he says.
He wants the ANC to take a hard look at conditions of transparency in its internal business. The party has to learn from the history of progressive movements elsewhere in terms of post-colonial experience and how they modernised themselves to deal with challenges.
He said progressive movements in post-colonial India seems to offer useful experience: "The ANC, in leading revolutionary nationalism, faces similar historical conditions. Consequently, success in our duties is contingent upon transformation being people-centered and people-driven.
"The ANC must avoid substituting itself and its leaders for the people, it must be a vehicle of the people's aspirations."
