‘Opportunists, careerists within our ranks’: Mbeki laments decline in the quality of ANC members

Former president Thabo Mbeki says the “continuous degradation” in the quality of the membership of the ANC, contributed directly to the governing party’s dismal showing in last month’s local government elections.

The ANC’s electoral support for the first time since the dawn of democracy in the country dipped below 50%, with the party losing control of Gauteng’s three metros of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni to the opposition.

Mbeki on Friday delivered the annual Chief Albert Luthuli Lecture during a virtual event that coincided with 60 years since Luthuli was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 for advocating non-violent resistance to racial discrimination in South Africa.

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The former president bemoaned that the ANC continued to retain opportunists and careerists within its ranks, who see their party membership as a means to get access to state power and enrich themselves.

He said this had led to a loss of confidence in the ANC because of corruption scandals, arrogance, factionalism and leaders who put their self-interest above the people. 

Mbeki said the ANC was behaving as though it wasn’t aware of the challenges facing the party.

He said the internal weaknesses of the ANC and the urgent need for organisational renewal was emphasised during the party’s previous conferences since 1997 in diagnostic reports. However, little has been done to arrest the degradation in the quality of the membership.

“The continuous degradation in the quality of the membership of the ANC emphasised at all ANC conferences for the two decades between 1997 and 2017 contributed directly to this sustained loss of electoral support by the ANC,” Mbeki said.

He said the ANC’s electoral support has been declining over the years and this was clear to everyone in the party.

The ANC received 66.3% of the vote nationally in the 2006 municipal elections; 62% in 2011, 55.65% in 2016 and 47.52% this year.

“This means that the ANC lost 18.8% of local electoral support during the four local government elections during the period 2006 to 2021 inclusive.

“This means that on average it lost 4.7% support on each election,” Mbeki said.

SA’s high levels of unemployment, inequality

The ANC had campaigned on the promise of “a better life for all” in all the elections since 1994, but for many years – with the ANC being in power – South Africa has seen stubbornly high and increasing levels of unemployment and inequalities, Mbeki said.

He said these social ills were impacting mainly on the working people who should benefit most from democratic rule.

“As we would expect, these ever-increasing unemployment rates reflect an economy in crisis,” Mbeki said.

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