ANC conference: The highlights

ANC conference: The highlights

Now that the African National Congress' (ANC) 54th elective conference has come to an end, it's time to reflect on the gathering’s highlights.

ANC TOP 6 Pic 2
Pieter van der Merwe

The party's elective conference kicked off on Saturday in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg , amid an announcement by President Jacob Zuma of free tertiary education for poor and working class students.

 

Zuma said the government will increase subsidies to universities from 0.68% to 1% of the GDP over the next five years as recommended by the fees commission.

 

However, he didn't mention how this would be implemented.


ALSO READ: Mixed reaction to fees announcement

 

Political analyst Tasneem Essop says most of the policy change announcements by the party were not necessarily new announcements. She believes South Africans are more interested in how the ANC will implement those announcements.

 

''Free tertiary education, the decriminalisation of sex work, the nationalisation of reserve bank and land expropriation without compensation are some of the really big key policy positions that have come out of Nasrec.

 

''These are all really big policy shifts from the ANC's previous elective conferences and a turn towards trying to deal with current economic challenges facing the majority of this country.''

 

Essop cautions that the headline policy statement, of land expropriation without compensation, will in all probability not be effectively implemented.

 

''The fact that the ANC wants to put loopholes around the policy of land expropriation without compensation such as a guarantee of 'food security' is a major red flag.

''I have concerns about how speedily the ANC will implement this policy if ever it will.''

Claims of voting irregularities during the election of the  ANC Top 6 lead to threats of a court challenge by 19 ANC disgruntled members whose votes were not counted.

 

On Wednesday, disgruntled ANC delegates sent the party a letter of demand urging that the ANC to consider their votes or face legal action.

 

This comes after Zuma's opening address of the conference, calling on members of the ANC to solve their issues within the party rather than running to the courts.

 

Essop says she wasn't surprised at the possibility of vote rigging given that these were concerns raised even prior the conference.

 

''The were questions very early on before the conference around vote buying and the credibility of the conference.

 

''All of this is definitely linked to fractional agendas in the ANC.''

In the early hours of Thursday morning the ANC announced their 80 members that would serve as additional members of the National Executive Committee (NEC).

 

Key South African Communist Party members were not included in the NEC, including Blade Nzimande and Solly Mapaila.

 

Essop says this decision to not include SACP members in the NEC reveals the presence of factional camps within the ANC.

 

''The SACP was definitely big losers in the top 80 NEC list, most of the candidates didn't make it.

 

''It shows to me a bit of a snubbing on the part of the different fractional camps in the ANC and measures their support of the SACP as well as the general decline of the alliance that we've seen over the last few years.''

 

Meanwhile, Congress of the South African Union (Cosatu) president, Sdumo Dlamini - who also forms part of the tripartite alliance - got re-elected to the party's highest decision-making body despite his similar crticism of the ANC.


This comes after Cosatu members booed Zuma at a May Day rally in Bloemfontein in October.

 

The announcement of the ANC NEC wrapped up the ruling party's 54th national conference.

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