South Africa Johannesburg ANC 55th conference Nasrec. Delegates for the 55th ANC National conference held at Nasrec who are amongst the bigger names in politics in South Africa . Nomvula Mokonyane Picture: Timothy Bernard African News Agency (ANA)
The ANC first deputy secretary-general (DSG) Nomvula Mokonyane said she was confident that these coming elections there would be a high voter turnout.
Mokonyane said this was because a majority of voters she interacted with raised concerns about the current coalition government, saying they were not ready to experience that at the national level.
“We have gone throughout to explain, share and finally interact with everybody how together can shape the way forward. There’s never been such an intense consultation ever since. I’ve been part of the ANC election machinery since 1994 and there has never been such an intense campaign,” she added.
The party’s first DSG said this was fuelled by the fact that the party was aware of an agenda that sought to undermine the ANC.
Mokonyane added that there were also attempts at a regime change.
According to her, there were foreign hands that sought to influence the ANC’s overthrow, citing the proliferation of new parties and foreign funding that was coming into the country.
“This is the agenda of those who are oppose to any progressive path, and not only in South Africa but also globally. One of the things that we have done as the ANC that we are not ashamed of was how we took a bold stance on the Palestinian and Israel issue.”
She alluded to the fact that that the stance the country took against Israel had affected the ANC funding, adding that some funders thought that material benefits would influence the party’s policy stance.
Mokonyane further pointed out that the decision the party took to support Palestinians might have affected their funding, but it had restored the party’s dignity.
“Currently we are being funded by our members predominantly and many patriotic South Africans. (We) are doing that within the confinement of the Electoral Commission of South Africa. The ANC has been one of the few parties that has been accounting and subjecting themselves to auditing by the IEC,” said the DSG.
On the question of whether the ANC was concerned about losing KwaZulu-Natal, Mokonyane said as an organisation, they were concerned generally about these elections; hence they made sure that they went door to door to convince people to vote for the ANC.
She said the organisation won’t be concerning itself with the formations of other political parties.
Mokonyane said the tactics that former president Jacob Zuma was using, telling people that he was still a member of the ANC, was just to create “a confusion” to confuse people in thinking that MK Party and the ANC were one and the same thing.
“We have organisational processes that need to be followed, and now our organisational processes might actually be seen to delay the inevitable, but it’s better that we do that.
“We don’t tire to follow processes, worse when somebody still says they are still member of the ANC, even when that person fight to be on another party’s ballot paper,” she said.
The Star
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