Mashudu Sadike and Ntombi Nkosi
Pretoria - If ANC alliance partners had their way, President Cyril Ramaphosa would not be standing for a second term as party leader at the 55th party elective conference next month.
This week, the ANC Youth League national task team said it preferred Dr Zweli Mkhize to become president of the party.
The ANC Women’s League was supposed to hold a press conference to announce its preferred candidate yesterday, but it cancelled at the last minute.
However, insiders said the Women’s League preferred Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to become ANC president.
At the same time, tripartite alliance partner SACP is considering entering the 2024 general elections, supported by Cosatu.
The ANC Veterans League hinted that Ramaphosa was not its preferred candidate.
In a statement yesterday, the ANC Youth League expressed its wish for Mkhize to be president, Paul Mashatile to be deputy president, Limpopo Premier Stan Mathabatha chairperson, Fikile Mbalula secretary-general, with Nomvula Mokonyane as deputy, and Pule Mabe as treasurer-general.
The statement read: “Over the next few weeks, as the ANC Youth League national youth task team, we will be rallying young people across all corners of the Republic of South Africa behind efforts aimed at ending sufferings and palpable poverty in our communities.
“As we approach the 55th national conference of the ANC, we have agreed that young lions must be an integral part of all processes that will ensure that this organisation emerges from this gathering with a clear implementation plan of its progressive policies and resolutions that will be adopted.”
It said it would convene a meeting to discuss matters on policy and constitutional amendments as a mandate that will be given to 40 delegates of the ANC Youth League at the national conference.
“Through our robust engagement, over the weekend and yesterday (Monday) in particular, we agreed that we must elect leaders that will ensure that young people’s potential is harnessed in order to guarantee the acceleration of socio-economic development throughout the corners of this country.
“We need leadership that will end load shedding, which has crippled our economy, ensure access to land, and transform the financial sector for the benefit of young people and indigenous people,” it said.
The party’s youth wing said it wanted a president who would work with the collective, alliance partners and all youth structures to resuscitate the old ANC culture that made no one feel alienated from the ANC for whatever reason.
Recently, Independent Media reported that the SACP was considering entering the 2024 elections supported by Cosatu.
The Liberation Struggle War Veterans of South Africa said it needed a president who would be cognisant of the history of the country, the political and the armed struggle.
Its spokesperson, Mduduzi Chiyi, said in the history of the South African Struggle there was clarity on who was an enemy of change, transformation and revolution. The West and white capital had been the main culprits.
He said the post-1994 era had exposed the charlatans who masqueraded as liberators, only to fleece on the blood of their own.
Chiyi said the poverty and abuse of veterans by factions of the ANC was an open secret and this created perpetual poverty for liberation ex-combatants and their future generations.
“The current president is not in sync with the supposed transformation project of the country and his views as a person are not in tandem with aspirations of the poor majority.
“He indirectly co-opts some black people to a class that is only accommodative to him.
“So his presidency is not assisting many South Africans. As a country, we are no longer progressing and the poor get poorer,” Chiyi said.
Pretoria News