Opinion: ANC January 8 Statement in the era of renewal, policy and factionalism  

LWANDA MAQWELANE

THE ANC’s 55th Elective Congress similar to that of the Morogoro Consultative Conference in 1969 must be considered as a watershed moment.

When a party has degenerated to the extent in which the ANC has allowed itself to become, calls for renewal can only be defined within the context and/or ambit of back-to-basics principles, values and organisational cultural practices.

Now more than ever, the collective is under immense pressure to firstly consolidate power,
secondly bring stability to the centre and thirdly, and I believe most importantly in a race
against time – regain public trust.

Therefore, the debilitating ideological paralysis in the over-reliance on the governing party’s historical legacy has since been saturated. In that it has failed to enthuse critical rigour and commitment to its own founding principles. Instead, what we have all been democratically subdued to endure has been the debase of ideological thinking that has