The ANC’s Political Renewal Thinking Reveals a Party at Odds With Itself

The African National Congress (ANC) went to its 5th National General Council (NGC) this week haunted by a spectre. The movement that once commanded overwhelming political loyalty openly admitted that it had become entangled in corruption, factionalism, and organisational drift.

Superficially, the plans it adopted to deal with that took the shape of a bold and comprehensive blueprint for internal revival. Yet, as was the case for the resolutions adopted on economic renewal (on which The Common Sense wrote at length here), a careful reading of the political commitments reveals something more conflicted; a sincere attempt to reinvent a movement without confronting the roots of its political decay. It attempts to restore political authority without relinquishing the habits that eroded it.

The ANC describes itself as both liberation movement and registered political party. Its renewal objectives stress that it must organise, mobilise, and lead the motive forces of society while also governing and, in some areas, acting as opposition. This dual identity becomes the foundation of its organisational culture.

That culture is described in familiar terms. The ANC must remain rooted among the people, maintain vibrant internal democracy, uphold collective leadership, and show readiness to acknowledge and correct weaknesses. It must plan better, evaluate better and build unity at home and abroad.

Idealised

These aspirations echo the idealised ANC of memory rather than the ANC of the present. What follows is a list of urgent interventions that underline how far the movement has drifted from its traditions.

The party instructs itself to develop a programme that includes auditing membership, rebuilding branches, strengthening performance and accountability systems, fighting corruption, restoring political education, forming a new cadre, and confronting the deterioration of political quality within the ranks. The repetition of the word renewal becomes its own admission that decline has taken root.

The party openly recalls past warnings it issued to itself that organisational renewal is an absolute and urgent priority for the political survival of the ANC. This is presented as a rallying call for internal reconstruction.

Yet the very need to reiterate the warning exposes a contradiction that runs through its entire programme. The movement recognises its crisis, but the tools it reaches for are the same ones that drifted out of use while decay took hold.

The intention is sincere. The execution is uncertain.

This uncertainty deepens when the party’s mind shifts to the matter of a renewed vision. It imagines deep engagement with branches, sectors, and broader society, as well as reflection on the balance of forces from local to global levels. It insists that renewal must reach beyond the party into the state and society. It adopts values and ethics as the backbone of renewal, backed by decisive action against corruption. The tone is resolute. Yet the absence of accountability for past failures of leadership weakens the moral force of the message.

The speeches and documents of the conference claim that the ANC regrets what happened during state capture and unreservedly condemns those involved. This is meant to signal a turning point.

But it is notable that the movement does not address how those involved rose through its structures, nor why corrective action was not taken earlier, nor why those responsible for enabling that environment remain influential within the ranks of the ANC. Renewal is presented as a forward-looking project rather than a reckoning with the past.

The vision broadens into community engagement. Delivering to communities becomes essential for rebuilding hope. Local government failures are acknowledged. Partnerships with civil society, business, and trade unions are encouraged. There is an emphasis on participatory democracy, constituency offices, and social compacting at community level to fight crime, food insecurity, and vandalism.

The ANC aspires to present itself as a responsive and people-centred organisation. Yet the disconnect between these commitments and the lived experience of many South Africans creates a shadow over the resolutions. Community engagement cannot be restored through intention alone. Trust must be earned, and the resolutions only partially recognise how profoundly it has been lost.

New Cadre

The concept of building a new cadre sits at the centre of its political thinking. This is framed as an ideological and practical reconstruction of the leadership and party deployees. Political education must be improved. Discipline must be restored, factions dismantled, and divisions eliminated. Young people must be drawn into leadership and trained in the organisation’s theory and culture. Skilled professionals must be recruited to support governance. The ANC must forge a cadre with militant spirit, principled character, and an unwavering commitment to the cause.

This vision is as ambitious as it is revealing. The need to build a new cadre implies that the old cadre has failed. The hunger for ideological depth reveals the emptiness left by years of internal conflict and patronage politics. The desire to rebuild a culture of discipline points to the erosion of authority. The movement wishes to restore its golden era by rebuilding the very people who once embodied it. Whether this can be done from within, using structures already compromised by factional interests, is left unexamined.

Branches are described as the heartbeat of the organisation, the direct link between the ANC and the people. They must respond to community needs, mobilise partnerships, monitor service delivery, and hold councillors to account. Each branch must operate with committees focused on health, safety, education, development, and local campaigns. They must communicate regularly with communities, support councillors in report-backs, and undertake outreach to every sector. Branch audits will assess their performance and branches without active community programmes may be deemed not in good standing.

These commitments present the ANC as a hyper-local, community-driven movement. Yet the gap between this vision and the current state of many branches is striking. Branches have often become vehicles for internal contests rather than engines of community mobilisation (as was the recent case in Johannesburg when the new city chair of the party was elected – in the week before the conference, an election that has spurred calls to investigate the corruption that may have determined the outcome).

The ANC acknowledges these problems indirectly through calls for induction, audits, and performance plans. However, it does not explore how branches are influenced by patronage, nor how internal elections often overshadow community work. The ANC imagines the branch that once existed rather than the branch that now struggles to function.

Non-racialism and non-sexism

The movement then confronts the matter of non-racialism and non-sexism. It notes progress in gender equality, acknowledges persistent patriarchal culture, and calls for strategies to combat gender-based violence. It also observes a significant deterioration in the non-racial character of the organisation. The party recommends targeted strategies to rebuild that culture.

The admission is notable in its frankness. Yet the analysis does not extend to why non-racialism has eroded in the first place. The movement treats the deterioration as an administrative challenge rather than a political consequence of its own behaviour and rhetoric over time.

Leadership and renewal are presented as interconnected tasks. The ANC asserts that leadership selection must be grounded in sound moral principles, and that cadre deployment must be based on merit. Generational mix is emphasised. Leaders must embody courage, integrity, humility, and self-discipline.

The contrast between these values and the recent history of leadership contests is difficult to ignore. The resolutions treat ethical leadership as a requirement that can be fulfilled through training and guidance. They do not address the systemic incentives that have rewarded unethical conduct. Nor do they confront how electoral dynamics inside the party have favoured factional loyalty over competence. The movement wants to discipline its future without interrogating the failures of its past.

The party goes to great lengths to expand this theme into accountability and performance. Public representatives must report regularly to organisational structures. Monitoring and evaluation departments must be established at national and provincial levels. Councillors and mayors must answer to the organisation. Local government forums must be revived for coherent oversight.

These proposals reflect a desire for structure and discipline. Yet they also subtly reaffirm the dominance of party over state, with the party positioned as the ultimate body to which even the president and Cabinet must report. The ANC insists that it serves the people, but the architecture it builds reinforces its role as the centre of political authority.

When the resolutions reach the matter of dealing with corruption and ill-discipline, the tone sharpens. The step-aside rule is reaffirmed as central to the movement’s future. Disciplinary hearings must be accelerated. Cadres charged with crimes must step aside voluntarily. The movement must dissociate from abusers and corrupt individuals. False accusations used for factional purposes must be sanctioned.

These are strong statements. Yet, again, the unspoken contradiction lingers. The movement demands integrity from individuals but does not address how its structures enabled the rise of compromised leaders. It seeks to purify without reconfiguring the environment that bred the impurity.

Upcoming elections

The party also considers the upcoming local elections. It recognises declining support, voter frustration and perceptions that the ANC is divided and ineffective. It calls for a well-resourced and disciplined election machinery.

The admission that voters doubt the party’s unity and sincerity is unusually direct. The response, however, focuses on campaign capacity rather than substantive political reform – and then, despite the very good analysis of the deep loss of popular confidence in the party – concludes in the fantasy of winning majorities in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal – without addressing how to restore the lost confidence.

The congress speeches and papers speak of mobilising motive forces, strengthening the alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, and strategising in the new era of coalition politics. These commitments reflect a movement hedging against future uncertainty. The language used is often quite striking in the fact that the ANC no longer assumes it will govern alone. It recognises the shifting political landscape and seeks tools to survive within it.

In total, how the ANC thinks about its political renewal reveals a party at war with its own mind.

The ANC wants to restore trust without confronting the full truth of its decline. It wants to rebuild its structures without challenging the incentives that corroded them. It wants ethical leadership but avoids discussing why unethical leadership flourished. It wants branches to act as engines of community engagement but does not reckon with how internal contests have hollowed them out. It wants merit-based deployment but preserves the machinery that made deployment a site of patronage. It wants unity but cannot escape the gravity of factionalism.

For serious people who care deeply about the ANC and its importance to South Africa’s stability, even as a partner in a coalition government, the inferences that must necessarily be drawn about the party’s prospects are not heartening.