ANC deputy secretary-general hopeful Nomvula Mokonyane has given President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC national executive committee an F — saying it has been the weakest in the party’s 110-year history.
In a frank assessment of the structure that she is part of, Mokonyane said the NEC had become inward-looking, fighting along factional lines, and had disbanded party structures instead of strengthening them.
“Under our [NEC] leadership, led by [Ramaphosa], we’ve done the worst. We have no leagues. All the provinces that we disbanded we’ve not rebuilt. We just saved North West. The Free State is difficult. Western Cape will not work out. The Youth League has not met; we disbanded it. We disbanded the Women’s League. Just a week ago we disbanded even the Veteran’s League, a body of elders. Who are we?”
Mokonyane is the party’s head of organising and is based at Luthuli House full-time. She is running for the position of deputy secretary-general when the ANC meets for its 55th national conference next month. Her name appears on a slate that backs Zweli Mkhize as president.
“This NEC was the weakest we’ve had ... because of how we looked at organisational issues. Many among us couldn’t hold back a factional approach to any problem we encountered”.
She gave the example of an NEC meeting that sat until 4am at the height of the energy crisis earlier this year where, instead of discussing Eskom, it discussed the Ekurhuleni regional conference.
The party’s leadership had become so factionalised there was no appetite for physical meetings. The NEC, she said, is probably the only structure that still meets virtually.
“Precisely because we have reached a point where we are scared of each other.
“You sit in the NEC, you speak once for three minutes and for the whole two days you’re told you can’t speak. But if we’re all together we’re not in a hurry, the country is in a crisis — the NEC needs more time,” she said.
Mokonyane did not support Ramaphosa ahead of the 2017 conference. She backed Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is again running against Ramaphosa.
This time, Mokonyane said, she has not thrown her weight behind any presidential candidate.
She said she was confident of victory in her own race for deputy secretary-general but would not be disappointed if she lost. She is up against the likes of Gwen Ramokgopa, Maropene Ramokgopa and Febe Potgieter.
“You must always have room for disappointments. Anything can happen in Nasrec. We saw it at the last conference. I was counting people physically and checking their voting tags, but the outcome became something else. I was [betting] on Sis’ Nkosazana, and without hiding it,” she says.
“I’m betting on myself now. I’ve never been a contestant for the top six. I’m supporting anything that promotes attempts of renewing the ANC, and any woman who’s being punted. I may not be your runner, but I think if there’s one conference that’s going to minimise slates, this is the one.”
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