January 8 (ANA) – The African National Congress has shown it is beyond the point of no return and President Jacob Zuma’s speech at the ANC’s 105th birthday celebrations at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg, was the “telltale last gasp of a dying organisation”, Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said on Sunday.
“It is an out-of-touch and divided party that is unable to self-correct and [has] passed the point of no return. Following the ANC’s results at the polls in August last year one would have expected a humble and introspective reflection on the past year and a meaningful commitment to effect real and substantive internal change,” he said in a statement.
“Rather, we were force-fed another rose-tinted ‘good story’ by a president who has overseen the party’s decimation over the past seven years. While the rest of the country is looking forward, the ANC can only but fondly recall its former glories.
Meanwhile, EFF leader, Julius Malema said the ANC was imploding and has to “bus in supporters” from Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal to hold a successful rally in Gauteng.
Speaking at Westville Prison in Durban after visiting the sole remaining #FeesMustFall student still in custody, Malema referred to the ANC’s 105th birthday rally at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg, and said 100 buses had ferried supporters from KwaZulu-Natal to the stadium.
“Gauteng is gone. The arrival of EFF has removed them from FNB [Stadium].” A growing party did not need to bus in supporters and did not choose a smaller stadium over a bigger venue. The EFF had never bused in supporters from another province, because the party did not have the money to do so.
He predicted that the ANC’s next birthday rally would be held at the King Zwelithini Stadium in Umlazi, which only has the capacity to seat 10,000 people.
Metal workers union Numsa said in an earlier statement that that South Africa should “expect nothing new from the ANC’s January 8th statement.”
“The ANC has run out of ideas, and morals. It has no clear strategy on how to radically transform the economy. There will be no concrete socialist plans to solve the problems of deepening inequality, poverty and joblessness, and the overburdening of workers through slave wages,” Numsa said.
“The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa believes the ANC’s annual January 8th statement has lost all meaning and relevance. The current crisis facing the ANC and its leadership is that the one hundred and five year old organisation is unable to realize the goals of the National Democratic Revolution, (NDR). “
“It is ironic that the party has chosen to hold its January 8th statement in Orlando Stadium, in a province where they only control one metro – and the rest are governed by the opposition. Five months after the local government elections, and the ANC is still experiencing the aftershocks of the results,” Numsa said.
