ANC’s grassroots recovery plan

THE ANC’s largest KwaZulu-Natal region, eThekwini, is preparing for the party’s Fifth National General Council (NGC) next month as it intensifies efforts to rebuild following its bruising defeat in last year’s national and provincial elections, which forced it into coalitions at all three spheres of government.

- SANDILE MDADANE

The poor showing in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng prompted the ANC’s national working committee to reconfigure the provinces’ elected leadership structures and replace them with provincial task teams.

In KwaZulu-Natal, this decision saw the return of party veterans Mike Mabuyakhulu and Jeff Radebe as coordinator and convenor, respectively, while provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo, a farmer, was put out to pasture.

This year’s NGC is being held under the theme, “The Year of Renewal: Making the ANC a More Effective Instrument of the People to Achieve the Vision of the Freedom Charter”.

Despite its electoral slump in KZN, the ANC managed to out-manoeuvre the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), which emerged as the single largest vote-winner, by forming a government of provincial unity with the IFP, DA and NFP, relegating the MKP to the opposition benches.

Against this backdrop, eThekwini Regional Task Team (RTT) secretary Simiso Mkhize says the party has humbled itself and returned to the grassroots on a fact-finding mission to understand where it went wrong with voters.

In an interview with the