Sunday 10 January 2016 12:11
OPINION: SABC`s Specialist Researcher, Ronesh Dhawraj
The January 8 statement is significant because it outlines the governing party`s policy priorities for the year ahead.(SABC)
African National Congress (ANC) President Jacob Zuma delivered his party`s annual January 8 statement to a packed Rustenburg stadium in the North West over the weekend.
As per tradition, the statement is presented each year on the party`s anniversary; the year 2016 marked 104 years for Africa`s oldest liberation movement.
The January 8 statement is significant because it outlines the governing party`s policy priorities for the year ahead. It also gives one a glimpse into what the annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) could focus on. In simple, it is the ANC government`s proverbial to-do-list.
Local government in focus
I was not surprised at all that the party`s powerful National Executive Committee (NEC) decided to declare the theme for this year as ‘The Year of Advancing People`s Power: Local Government is in Your Hands - the ANC Lives, the ANC Leads, the ANC Works!`.
The party knows is cognisant of the reality it may lose support in the 2016 local government elections, notably in the eight metropolitan municipalities.
By admission, it realises also that the local government sphere is its weakest; and this is where most energies need to be redirected during the next few months. You would recall the party suffered a number of humiliating incidences prior to the 2011 poll when its very own local representatives cried foul for allegedly being sidelined in the list processes.
Respected NEC member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was roped in to untangle the mess. This time around, the party is being firm by asserting 2016 local councillors "must have the trust and confidence of the community where they live and serve". The ANC President emphasized the need for more political education at local community level, going as far as proposing weekly meetings to educate communities and local representatives alike.
Zuma further outlined that these ANC representatives "should act as the custodians of the principles of fundamental social change; winning respect among their peers and society at large through their exemplary conduct…they must be informed by values of honesty, hard work, humility, service to the people and respect for the laws of the land". With these firm assertions, it is abundantly clear the party is tackling its local government woes with the seriousness it deserves.
Admission the economy is stifling the national project
Speaking at a gala dinner at Sun City before the January 8 main event, Zuma made perhaps one of the party`s most uncomfortable confessions in recent times: the economy was not benefitting the millions it intended to benefit. At that event, Zuma said "we have yet to correct the historical injustice of dispossession, economic disempowerment and exploitation…we have yet to achieve a society in which the people share in the country`s wealth…we have yet to achieve a society in which the land is shared among those who work it…it is for this reason that we have entered a new phase in our struggle, in which we have placed the achievement of radical economic transformation at the centre of all our efforts".
If other opposition parties are smart, they will capitalise on these words; and spin it to their benefit.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) for example can say ‘but this is exactly what we`ve been telling the ANC all along` and the Democratic Alliance (DA) can easily hijack this statement to mean ‘we told you so…the economy is where South Africa`s problems lay`.
Zuma went on to add redistribution was a "moral imperative" that was also "an economic imperative"; and by keeping the masses on the periphery of the skewed economy, it was self-strangulating development on all fronts.
Young people we hear you!
Another aspect of Zuma`s speech was its heavy focus on the youth.
Another aspect of Zuma`s speech was its heavy focus on the youth.
By speaking on the Fees Must Fall campaign, Zuma demonstrated his party was not deaf to the cries of poor students; and that his party was still current, relevant and attune to the ever-altering national agenda.
And the fact that 2016 marks 40 years since the historic Soweto Uprising, the ANC has more room to claim this space as its own. The true test will however come once the 2016 academic year kicks into gear.
I will be curious to see how the ANC reacts to the impending threats of more nationwide student protests. The party will be foolish to discount the advances of a prowling EFF and an organised DA.
Racism has no place in South Africa
I was glad to see the ANC NEC come out strongly against the recent spate of racist rants that went viral through social media.
It was correct to acknowledge the country`s current social ills were intrexicably tied to South Africa`s colonial past "characterised by a ‘racial hierarchy` and systematic, institutionalised conquest and dispossession". Even after twenty-one years of democracy, racial attitudes were still hardened.
The party was on point by demonising the few who were still stuck in the pre-1994 mindset, while at the same time issuing a subtle warning that such emboldened racist behaviour had no place in the South Africa of 2016.
As a governing party, the ANC showed leadership. In his speech, Zuma said "it is clear there is a tiny minority that still harbours a desire for separate amenities and who idolise apartheid-era leaders who made our country the skunk of the world...these people do not represent the true character of the new South Africa…they are living in the past…the ANC has put in place the legislative instruments to prevent discrimination on the basis of race and this has gone a long way in dealing with the social ills associated with discrimination…however, building a non-racial society requires more than this…it requires a mind-set shift that respects the basic human dignity of all people and a commitment from everyone to consciously reject racism and narrow ethnic chauvinism".
The ANC could have easily elected to lambast the DA and its leaders (such as Dianne Kohler-Barnard) and a few of its members for propagating this racist bile in recent times.
It could also have politically spun this development into something of a white-against-black race war and ‘this-is-why-you-need-to-vote-with-the-ANC` narrative. It did not. Instead it behaved responsibly by condemning the few racists, allowing them space to alter those ‘race-tinted` mentalities.
Clearer directives lacking
Absent from Zuma`s January 8 statement was more clarity on a number of other issues that would have ordinarily filtered its way in. Zuma for example could have devoted much more time on the ailing State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and their financial overhauling; how exactly "wastage and corruption" were going to be reigned in; how the ANC government intended tackling the weakening currency that has major implications for poorer South Africans; and the ANC`s tangible plans for stimulating a stagnant economy to spur the creation of more jobs.
Hopefully, these issues receive much more attention during the party`s end-of-January lekgotla, to be included in the February 11 State of the Nation Address.
RONESH DHAWRAJ is a Specialist Researcher (Politics) with the SABC`s Research & Policy Analysis Department. He is currently a Ph D candidate with the University of South Africa (UNISA) focusing on the ANC and DA`s prospects in the upcoming 2016 Local Government Elections.