South Africa’s Ramaphosa says the ANC needs to be renewed in order to regain aid Politics News

The ruling party is celebrating its 110th anniversary, with factions clashing bitterly and allegations of corruption.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said the ruling party, the African National Congress, must work to restore the people’s support after plunging into corruption scandals and splitting fierce factional competition.

On Saturday, the 110th anniversary of the ANC, Ramaphosa took a dark note, stressing that Nelson Mandela’s party, which had helped bring democracy to South Africa, had lost voter support.

“We need to be direct in recognizing the reality that the ANC structures are in a state of disrepair, and we need to deal decisively with it,” Ramaphosa said.

“Many of them are based on internal organizational conflict, factionalism, and the self-interest of individual leaders, rather than the intentions of the communities they need to serve.”

The anniversary ceremony in northern Limpopo, a state-sponsored judicial investigation, revealed that some of the party’s top officials had benefited and had arrived in a few days. corruption.

The ANC is also widely divided among those who support Ramaphosa, who is also the party’s president, and those who are loyal to former President Jacob Zuma, who has been embroiled in legal battles since he left office in 2018.

Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison in July last year for refusing to appear before the commission of inquiry, and caused the incident It led to widespread theft and destruction of property in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

More than 340 people were killed in the clashes.

Former ANC lawmaker Melanie Verwoerd told Al Jazeera that the ruling party was “clearly fighting.”

“[The ANC now] The 1994 ANC party is very, very different. At the moment, the party is struggling organizationally, ”said Verwoerd.

“They are also fighting financially for a new law that introduced the financing of political parties. Basically, they have failed and have not been able to pay their employees for a very long time, ”he added.

The ANC came to power in 1994, when the country’s first democratic elections were held, and Mandela became the first black president.

However, his support has plummeted in recent years and he received less than 50 percent of the vote in local elections in October, the worst turnout ever.

Ramaphosa said many supporters of the ANC were punished for not voting.

“Many citizens expressed their dissatisfaction with the ANC and its actions by withdrawing from the polls,” he said on Saturday.

Modibe Modiba, co-founder and host of The Insight Factor – a digital media platform, told Al Jazeera that South Africa’s political dynamics are changing and that the ANC is taking responsibility.

“The ANC has found it very difficult to distinguish itself from the corruption that is taking place in the country, because the party itself is part of the corruption that is taking place,” Modibe said.

“The ANC is also at war with factions. The members of the party are no longer united, they are fighting each other. We have seen state institutions used against the former president of the organization, ”Modibe said.

The ANC will hold its national assembly this year, where Ramaphosa will run for a second term as party leader. But he still has strong opposition from those loyal to Zuma.

The ANC was founded in 1912 to campaign against the rule of white minorities and to campaign for the full democratic rights of black South Africans.

The ANC’s annual event was attended by only 2,000 people as a result of COVID-19 measures restricting outdoor public gatherings to 2,000 people.