Cape Town - The ANC is going back to basics to restore its credibility and heal after the bruising it got in the last election, the party's Western Cape secretary Faiez Jacobs said in Cape Town on Saturday.
"People are increasingly saying they are not happy with the ANC," said Jacobs at the 33rd anniversary of the formation of the anti-apartheid alliance the United Democratic Front (UDF).
"The organisation needs to go through a process of healing."
Jacobs said that the commemoration of the formation of the UDF in Rocklands was the perfect time to reflect on what the ANC-aligned movement stood for.
"Today is also a very important reflection for us. We want to have a dialogue with our comrades, comrades who tell us that our organisation is not in the state that it used to be."
He said factionalism and gate-keeping had caused the drop in support for the ANC and this needed to change.
He called on ANC supporters who were no longer politically actives to to come back into the fold.
"We are calling on all of you to unite around the organisation," he said.
The UDF had managed to unite against apartheid, and so the movement could unite again.
"We need your skills," he implored. "Let's build the African National Congress, let's restore it to its former glory."
He was followed by former tourism minister, SAA board chair and ANC official Cheryl Carolus who said: "We might not like the medicine they gave us, but let us take that medicine and get better and heal ourselves."
She said during the anti-apartheid struggle people were not regarded as "instruments to achieve our votes" and she lamented the way poor people are treated.
"The truth that we are faced with today is not pretty, but you know what, it went there on our watch.
"Well, let us fix it on our watch."
She said in the days of the UDF, people could only call themselves members if they were already actively involved in a civic organisation or church group to show they had a track record of activism.
But she still believed the ANC was the only movement to take the country forward.
ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete was among those who were due to address the gathering.