[ad_1]
Under his hand, Ace Magashule has grown the ANC to its largest paid membership to date. What does that mean?
Since Ace Magashule was elected general secretary of the ANC in 2017, the party has grown by almost 25%, new details on audited membership figures reveal. The party now has 1.4 million members, up from 989,000 in December 2017.
The performance of those in the Magashule position in the ANC is compared to the numbers of paid members; this being a tangible indication of support. Former Secretary General Gwede Mantashe doubled the party’s membership to more than 1.2 million during his tenure. It was the first time the ANC had crossed the million mark.
After dropping to less than a million as the party cleaned up its membership database, Magashule spent his first term increasing paid membership.
The main provinces of the ruling party are KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. But nevertheless, Daily maverick could not get details on which provinces were growing in terms of membership. One official said the biggest growth is in cities, which is important as the ANC was losing support in subways and urban centers.
Analysts said the 2016 local government elections, when the ANC lost Johannesburg (which it has since regained) and Tshwane, raised the specter of the ANC becoming a predominantly rural party. However, further membership increases showed the party was growing in cities and urban centers, an official said.
Former President Jacob Zuma cost the ANC considerable support in cities and metropolitan centers where voters were alienated by his administration’s association with corruption.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is more popular with urban voters than his predecessor, polls show in his 1,000 days in office.
This may explain part of the membership growth.
But Magashule also understands power, and specifically how power works in the South African political system.
ANC membership and branches are the key to the country when the party is in government. This is due to South Africa’s party-based electoral system and also to the ANC constitution, which makes the branches the main unit of the party.
Election to powerful positions begins at the branches. To build branches, you need members. It is through this process that Vice President David Mabuza occupies the position he now occupies.
As the provincial president of the ANC in Mpumalanga, Mabuza increased the membership from 54,000 to 132,000, and then 158,000, through the party’s most recent national conferences. This growth made him a kingmaker in the Nasrec conference and secured him the role of vice president, both in the party and later in the country.
Ace Magashule may now be implementing the same strategy to make sure he remains secure in his position and furthers his ambitions. Magashule faces serious corruption charges, but the ANC is unlikely to force him to step aside. One reason is that it has raised membership to its highest level in the history of the post-apartheid party.
Former ANC President Thabo Mbeki did not support mass membership and instead favored a smaller ANC, using the Leninist phrase, “Better less, but better,” to mean that having fewer, higher-quality members was better for the party and the country.
The ANC has had many years of problems with its membership rosters, including problems of ‘ghost’ members whose identification numbers are used by rent seekers to buy memberships in order to create branches to buy votes and secure executive positions for them. themselves.
Executive positions in district, regional and provincial structures allow these networks to influence the way in which tenders are distributed, thus membership has become a monetary unit rather than a mechanism of political association.
Under the leadership of the party’s director general, Febe Potgieter, the worst abuses of the system have been cleaned up, but it is still open to manipulation given high unemployment rates and the value placed on the organization’s leadership positions by executives branch up. DM
