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PHOTO: Vathiswa Ruselo, Gallo Images / Sowetan
- The main celebration of ANC’s January 8th birthday will be in Polokwane, but the rally will be a fraction of its normal size.
- ANC members will have the opportunity to meet in smaller groups to watch the proceedings broadcast live from there.
- Party officials will brief the media on the details on Friday.
It will be smaller, but the ANC still hopes to make a big hit when it celebrates its 109th birthday at Polokwane next month.
ANC General Treasurer Paul Mashatile, who is on the committee organizing the January 8 partyth rally told News24 that organizers would meet Thursday night in Limpopo to discuss the plans.
“Normally on the eve (of the rally) we will have a dinner of a thousand people, but next year it will be a dinner of a hundred people or even less,” he said.
The rally is scheduled for the second weekend of January and normally kicks off the ANC’s programs for the year. Next year’s rally will be especially important as it comes at the start of a local government election year during which the party hopes to regain full control of some of the key metropolitan areas.
The size of the rally has also been used in recent years to gauge support for the ANC, and especially the president, with stadiums built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup filled with tens of thousands of people and minimal boos interpreted as a popularity sign.
If the current Covid-19 restrictions will still be in place in about three weeks, President Cyril Ramaphosa will likely read the January 8 statement to a group of no more than 250 people outdoors in his home province.
Mashatile said:
We are deploying members of the ANC NEC in all provinces so they can have smaller meetings there. We are not inviting other people to come to Limpopo, only the top six.
The plan is to broadcast the proceedings live to the provinces, either through giant screens or to have the branches meet in small groups to watch the live broadcast on television.
“Our program is going to be very different this time. It is forcing us to be creative and it can also be very efficient,” he said.
Mashatile said that the Covid-19 lockdown, which began in late March, had forced the party to adapt to new ways. “By January 8th in Kimberley [earlier this year]Who would have thought we were going to have our meetings for Zoom? “
READ | NEC meeting sees reps fight over where ANC’s Jan 8 rally should take place
He said the party would also have to take into account projections for next year’s Covid-19 infection figures. “If the situation worsens in January, we will have to review our plans and activities,” he said.
ANC Undersecretary General Jessie Duarte will address a press conference in Polokwane and online at noon on Friday to give details on the party’s plans for next year’s celebrations.
Doubts have been raised about the party’s insistence on going ahead with the celebrations, which typically involve smaller walks and rallies before the big one, after Ramaphosa announced tougher measures in an effort to curb the rapid spread of the virus in early 2000 this week.
So far, Limpopo has been spared the worst of the recent resurgence of reported Covid-19 infections, as hotspots have been declared in the Eastern Cape and Garden Route in the Western Cape, and numbers have skyrocketed considerably in Cape Town. and Durban, which are popular. with vacationers at this time of year.
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