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Johannesburg - ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has frankly admitted that the party is losing support, much like other liberation movements in Africa, a report said on Friday.
In a statement from the party’s national working committee to the national executive committee last month, Mantashe wrote that “the threats to the liberation movement in the region [are] real”, reported the Mail & Guardian.
Although the party expects a number of former members to return from the Economic Freedom Fighters, last month President Jacob Zuma plainly stated “the organisation is in trouble”, as reported by Sapa.
“The youth league has been shaken but also the mother body has been shaken,” he told delegates at the ANC Youth League consultative conference in Soweto, Johannesburg, last month.
But Zuma also warned: "I can guarantee you that if everything goes wrong with the ANC, everything will go wrong in this country. There is no doubt about it."
Mantashe’s report states the party learnt a hard lesson at the polls in May of “how the youth and the urban vote are the focal point for recruitment and mobilisation” of opposition parties.
The party is looking at liberation movements in other countries such as Mozambique and Botswana who have seen a decline in support.
Mantashe told the M&G that while he did not consider the ANC’s hold on power to be under threat, he did believe there was a “systematic offensive” against the party.
In September, ANC policy head Jeff Radebe promised the party would step up its game ahead of the 2016 local government elections.
He also admitted that recent divisions and troubles within the ANC Youth League and trade federation Cosatu meant that the party’s “ideological leadership” was not at its peak, wrote City Press.
