No party in SA has the ability to destroy a renewed ANC – Mbeki

Former African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki has called on fellow comrades to work on the party’s renewal before it “dies”.

Speaking at a memorial service in honour of late anti-apartheid activist and stalwart Rita Ndzanga on Soweto on Thursday, Mbeki called on the party to get rid of power-hungry comrades if it is to survive the 2024 elections.

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“We cannot have a situation that you have people popping out who are corrupt. In the ANC people say the ANC is corrupt, The ANC is not corrupt, but it caries within its ranks people who are corrupt. To renew itself, it must get rid of those kinds of people,” said Mbeki.

‘ANC must be honest’

The ANC must be honest in its renewal project too, said Mbeki.

“We are fortunate in another respect, that we can’t cheat the masses of the people. The masses of the people know who is wrong, who’s bad among us. I’m sure you can go through all the townships in Soweto and the people will say we’re wondering why the ANC is keeping so and so. We’re very fortunate because we have this examiner, who is the masses of our people, it’s them who are going to give us the marks, to say we have passed.

“So when we engage the masses in the process of renewal, it has to be genuine, not a show and pretence, because people will discover that we’re pretending and will punish us.”

Mbeki said the current state of the ANC has given some political parties the boldness to “destroy” it.

“You’ve got political parties which are bold to say ‘we’re here to destroy the ANC. Come 2024, the ANC will be so reduced that it will be in a coalition’,” said Mbeki.

But this will not happen if the ruling party honestly renews itself and earns the trust of the masses. The former president said there was no political party in South Africa that would be able to destroy a renewed ANC.

“With so many of us here, I am very glad that all of us here are foot soldiers of the ANC and we’re making a commitment to Rita Ndzanga that we’re going to rebuild this ANC about which she was very worried.

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“We met here to say farewell to her but also to make that commitment. We will renew ourselves and there’s no party in this country which has the possibility to defeat that ANC. I’m talking about the renewed ANC, that one will not be defeated.”