I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you from the hectic festive season, which, under normal circumstances, should be a time to rest and enjoy a well-deserved break from the rat race.
I trust that we have all entered the New Year in one piece, with the exception of some loved ones who were lost to the road fatalities, something that we all need to tackle as a collective. The start of a New Year is always associated with fresh beginnings as people set themselves goals and time frames for things to do and achieve in the year.
Typically, some of the most common New Year’s resolutions for men is to quit drinking and smoking, while the fairer sex tend to seek that slim figure that is sure to get them a Mr Right who will ‘put a ring on it’. Whether those resolutions are followed and kept is a matter for another day.
The ANC also does the same every January. It dresses itself to kill, metaphorically speaking, in an amazing combination of black, gold and green and, without a care in the world, dances the night away in the hope of luring new suitors.
In ANC language, this is called the January 8 statement, and on this day the organisation celebrates its founding. This year it is turning 105, making it the oldest liberation movement in Africa. The party uses this platform on January 8 to gloss over its failures and make pronouncements on the economy, politics and society, issues which it looks forward to and hopes to tackle in the year ahead to bring prosperity for all.
Whether the pronouncements ever become a reality is also a matter for another day.
But this year the pronouncements went far beyond the sweet-talking aimed at attracting new members. The party is engulfed by infighting, where a dog-eats-dog situation has become the order of the day, or should we call it ANC eating ANC.
This dog-eats-dog cannibalistic tendency of the ANC has frightened off some members and sympathizers, especially in the country’s richest province, Gauteng, whose three major metros fell under the Democratic Alliance in the 3 August municipal election, including Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in the Eastern Cape.
With all this hullabaloo bedeviling the organisation, the ANC decided to use the January 8 statement as a show of force to gloat and indicate to the public that it was neither a dying party nor one in ICU. Many have already begun writing its obituary come the 2019 national elections.
But many don’t buy that show of force in Gauteng, as many of those who filled the iconic Orlando Stadium in Orlando East, Soweto, were not Gautengers. They were bussed in from all over the country. Many believe it was a damp squib and that only the 2019 elections will distinguish the men from the boys.
