ANC members might call for early elective conference - Mbete

Cape Town - The ANC could be officially asked to go into an early elective conference after the shock of the local government elections, its chairperson Baleka Mbete said on Saturday.

This proposal might be raised at a National Executive Committee NEC planned for September, she said at the 33rd commemoration of the formation of anti-apartheid group the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Cape Town.

"Should we have an early conference? Maybe that is what the branches will say to us.

"That is not a crisis," said Mbete in a warts and all frank address on the state of the ANC.

She said the party may have been humiliated to some extent during the 3 August elections, and did recognise that it needed to rebuild the party.

It had evidence of people positioning themselves for councillor jobs via behind the scenes networking to get onto the party's regional structures.

This led to corruption and greed, she said.

The only way to address this was a complete revamp of branch elections and possibly changing the list system.

"We need to re-engineer the branch," said Mbete.

She said she was stunned to find that the ANC had not put much effort into campaigning in traditionally white areas.

This gave the Democratic Alliance the chance to scoop up many potential supporters.

"It is wrong comrades, in fact it is lazy."

She said the post-election period where coalitions were brokered was difficult. She claimed half of the EFF seemed keen to go into coalition with the ANC and not the DA.

"And believe it or not, Julius [Malema] was among them."

She rounded off by urging people not to turn against each other in the party.

"When do you stop being comrades and start being members of a faction," she asked.

"Talk about it because then you will know what you are dealing with."

This article first appeared on News24.