Mangaung 'a numbers game'
The Eastern Cape ANC's campaign to replace Jacob Zuma as president of the party with his deputy Kgalema Motlanthe has been dealt a severe blow with the revelation that the province's ANC membership has dropped by 35000.
ANC membership in the province with the most ANC members after KwaZulu-Natal has plunged from 225597 in January to 187585.
The membership figures, released by the ANC last week will be used to determine the number of delegates who will represent the provinces at the ANC's elective conference in Mangaung, the Free State, in December.
In Kwa-Zulu-Natal, the number of ANC members increased by 90000 - a huge boost to Zuma's campaign because the province is his electoral stronghold.
In Gauteng, party membership grew from 121223 to 134909.
Various Gauteng members have called on delegates to the Manguang conference to do what was best for the country.
A member of the Gauteng provincial executive committee said party members would be doing South Africa a disservice if they voted with their bank accounts in mind.
"We have reached a point at which the type of leadership we elect in Mangaung should take this country to another level. [If we fail to] do so, we will all be punished come the national elections in 2014.
"It's now or never - South Africa's moment, a voter's moment, has arrived and we can't be found wanting," said the committee member.
The tally of how many delegates each province will take to Mangaung is to be announced tomorrow.
Academic and political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said the presidential race had become a numbers game.
"The battle has moved into the algebra of numbers.
"It has become a political algebra of accreditation. People have learned from Polokwane that the politics of algebra are far more important," said Fikeni.
The ANC in Eastern Cape blamed the decline in its membership on the formation of COPE, which had claimed some members of the ANC.
William Gumede, author of Restless Nation , attributed the spike in KwaZulu-Natal's membership figures to the collapse of the Inkatha Freedom Party and the exodus from that party to the ANC.
"Former Inkatha members have joined the ANC because Zuma is there.
"The problem [with this] is that they might support Zuma but not the ANC.
"If Zuma is not there they might leave the ANC," he said.
Gumede said that in the long-term the situation ahead of Manguang placed both the ANC and the country in a precarious situation.
"We don't want anybody to mobilise support based on one ethnic group.
"The country needs the kind of leadership that can mobilise support across all ethnic groups."
Support based on ethnicity would, he said, undermine the goal of building and developing a diverse but cohesive South Africa.
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If you have an opinion you would like to share on this article, please send us an e-mail to the Times LIVE iLIVE team. In the mean time, click here to view the Times LIVE iLIVE section.MicaParis
Posted 230 days agoIn a ‘’false democracy’’ such as the one characterising South African system of politics, through ‘’numbers’’ anybody can be anything in the political climate.
A sizzling criminal can be a head of state through numbers, numbers are so unfair in political climate which is clouded by ‘’hypocrites’’ in search of wealth and self riches, a taxi driver who commands majority and have got more than 5000 roads fines and charges can simply become our Minister of Transport as far as numbers are concerned. A crook who started off by being a tenderpreneure stealing tax payers money ‘’underground’’ can simply be elevated by numbers to be the Minister of Finance without any qualifications only because of numbers! **Numbers** can turn a complete ''stupid'' into a hero and a ****leader****!
Numbers in a monetary form can buy you the President of South Africa, a Judge in any court, a government or private fat post, tenders and political influence through buying delegates and promising those numbers in monetary value in return for their votes.
‘’Numbers’’ are indeed so unfair in ‘’false democracy’’ they can earn a person everything including turning a ‘’pauper’’ into the ‘’top millionaire’’ within just over three year, even police dockets disappear through numbers, ‘’drugs’’ rove our country through monetary numbers as they pleases, even children sacrifice their education through monetary numbers, numbers are so cruel!
Ozgood
m1si2zi3nzo4
Rousseau said that 'the larger the state, the more attenuated its general will within the individual citizens". Hence the need for enforcing elitist laws, by a few elitist club, against the citizens. Such laws are made by the "majority" of select groups, by the party elite, who are virtually banned from thinking their own thought, even if they knew what the citizens 'will'. They are illiterate, less informed, largely unemployed- thus fully dependent on their elite.
Our totalitarian regime has abolished, and incorporated into the state, all "private and unofficial associations of society" Rousseau regarded this as the area where "private interests and inequality that destroy liberty" flourish.
We have now a blind president leading the blind partisan elite, gleefully pronouncing that only he, and his elite, have 'more rights' than the rest of society. As if this was not enough, these 'rights' to pronounce on the life and death of those he deems dispensable.
MicaParis
You have hit the nail on top of the head! But however for those of us who have the knowledge and vision to predict the weather forecast, your analysis is an absolute painful truth, the burden of which is very difficult to bear. We can only wait and watch in disbelief as ''numbers'' will again plunge our country into the deep water of poverty, bad governance and economic instability.
''Something'' needs to be done to reduce the bad consequences of ''false democracy'', we really need to change our political system to include every body not ''few'' ANC branches.
Tshepoamodimo
Posted 230 days agoABASHA WITH OPPONENTS ABASHA!!!
MSHOLOZI!!!
SuiGeneris
Posted 230 days agoThis is exactly what the ANC have been doing all these years. They concentrate on the uneducated people with their cheap political promises and these people believe them every time.
They buy votes for the cost of little food parcel, an ANC t-shirt, and cheap and unrealistic promises of millions of new jobs.
These kind of promises that only fools will believe !
Loggenberg
Posted 230 days agoRSA.MommaCyndi
Posted 230 days agoIt is going to be interesting to see if the regions where membership declined is reflected in the next voting statistics.
MicaParis
**It is going to be interesting to see if the regions where membership declined is reflected in the next voting statistics. **
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The meaning of the sentence signify two main parallel paradigm, the methodology of which will be within the mould of ‘’party membership voting’’ for the top six leadership and ‘’general elections voting’’ for the new *political party* to lead our ‘’government’’
There will be no fairness in those two instances as on political front, the truth will be clouded and finally outnumbered by hypocrisy due to fear of victimisation, populism and factionalism/ ‘’gangsterism’’. Cadres will vote for Zuma by duress in fear of losing a free ride in the gravy train!
There will be no farness as well in reflection of results as far as ‘’general elections’’ are concerned as large number of illiterate black people (ANC source of power) will vote for ANC/Zuma in fear of losing their ‘’social grants’’ which their ‘’educational vision’’ suggest that they are coming from ANC/Zuma as such ousting him will result in loss of ‘’income’’ for their families in lieu of hefty unemployment statistics as another factor. The people need to be thought by specifically DA as the majority opposing party that the ‘’money for the grants’’ is not coming from ANC /Zuma but the National Treasury! The truth under these circumstances will be clouded by lack of knowledge, illiteracy and poverty.
olibo
Posted 230 days agoUDFSupporter
Posted 230 days agoLoggenberg
Posted 230 days agofoxie123
m1si2zi3nzo4
The sobering thought is that this refers only to the well-established nation state, whose citizen is not only highly educated, but is able to exercise his full political right of removing the inept ruling elite from power by vote. Ours has never tasted even the power of removing a ruling elitist party, and replacing it with another. From kings, to rebellion, and now the new ruling totalitarians, we do not know the real power of the vote. And we cannot pass any real democracy to the next generation. Even if replacing one impotent party with another, this would be a relief, as they say, 'new brooms sweep clean, before they also become dirty'. This would give the citizens some space to review their lives, without the same deafening rhetoric from the same elite - for eighteen years!
Loggenberg
Mangqeshane
Posted 230 days agom1si2zi3nzo4
Posted 229 days ago