WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-01-17 Time: 06:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Yugendree Naidoo
Cape Town – The ANC in the Western Cape appears to be divided over its prospects of making any gains in the province’s municipalities at the upcoming local government elections.
Ironically, commentators have for a long time said it is a lack of unity in the provincial party ranks that has contributed to the ANC’s inability to ever achieve an outright win in the province.
Last weekend outgoing provincial task team convenor Membathisi Mdladlana was reported saying he was “worried sick” at the divisions within the ANC in the province.
“We are not going to win the province if we continue to conduct ourselves in this way,” Mdlalana was reported as saying.
But Mandla Dlamini provincial task team co-ordinator countered days later with: “I’m not worried at all. I’m more anxious for these things (two outstanding regional conferences) to happen.”
Division in the provincial ANC has been a long-running theme in the Western Cape, fuelled by, but not exclusive to, different expectations between black and coloured voters.
When Ebrahim Rasool was premier from 2004, due the ANC merging with the NNP, the split between the ‘coloured’ camp led by Rasool and the ‘black’ camp held by provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha, became so abrasive that Rasool was recalled in 2008, further alienating what coloured voter base the party had.
Efforts to field a coloured leader in the province have not proved successful either, with neither Alan Boesak, Chris Nissen, nor Rasool managing to bring home the desired results.
Now international relations deputy minister Marius Fransman is set to represent the provincial face of the ANC.
But an anonymous source within the party said fielding Fransman would make no difference as Western Cape voters were “fed up” with the party.
He said Fransman was not a fresh face and it would take more than a figurehead to win back voters.
What was required of the ANC, he said, was introspection and admitting their mistakes to the voters in the province.
Internal differences also needed to be better managed so that they weren’t aired in the media.
“The DA have also got their own divisions, for instance between Zille and (Health MEC Theunis) Botha, but they manage it well…they don’t make the public aware of it.”
He said he predicted the ANC would “get a hiding” at the polls this year.
It was also fundamental for the ANC to solve the problem of competition for jobs between coloured people and migrants from the Eastern Cape.
“It’s about the state of employment as the working class of Mitchell’s Plain compete with Khayelitsha’s.”
He pointed to the fact that the ANC was stronger in rural areas where coloured farm workers did not have to compete for labour.
However, deputy co-ordinator of the ANC’s provincial task team, Randy Pieterse, said the party was not planning to come second at the polls.
Pieterse said they were “going out to govern on their own” rather than having to broker coalitions with other parties.
“I can definitely say there is no crisis and that we’re not throwing in the towel…we won’t allow factions within the party to distract.”
But he said there were people in the party who were reluctant to change their ideas and help rebuild the organisation in the province.
He said he also understood where Mdladlana is coming from as he had received little reward despite “putting in 100 percent” to rebuild the party in the province.
At the 2006 local government election the DA garnered 41,85 percent of the vote in the City of Cape Town compared to the ANC’s 37, 91 percent.
Although the ANC won most of the smaller municipalities during that election they have lost many of them to the DA at by-elections during the intervening years.
Original date published: 17 January 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201101170473.html?viewall=1