The death of former Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan brought a moment of reflection for the ANC which has been experiencing electoral decline and lost its parliamentary majority for the first time during the May 29 National and Provincial Elections.
The ANC in Gauteng held a memorial service for Gordhan in Johannesburg on Tuesday where speakers, one after the other, vowed to do the part to rescucitate the ailing liberation movement.
“This GNU is not the final stop, its halfway stop, the final stop is still coming and that is when we reclaim power in 2029,” said Provincial chairperson Panyaza Lesufi who is also the premier.
“The Gordhan family tells us he died of cancer. Corruption is like cancer, it eats through the flesh and soul. If we want to honour comrades who stood against corruption like PG we should pick up the baton that has now fallen,” said ANC National Treasurer Gwen Ramokgopa who was the main speaker at the event.
Gordhan’s push for the privatisation of state owned enterprises pitted him against Cosatu as well as the South African Communist Party, the ANC’s allies in the so-called tripartite allowance and SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo said both organisations held him in high regard in spite of the differences.
Mashilo referred to the failed attempt by Gordhan to sell the national airline South African Airlines as having caused tensions with both SACP and Cosatu.
“We remain opposed to the selling off of state assets because those companies should be at the centre of our economic transformation agenda and giving them to capital went against that whole idea,” said Mashilo.
At the centre of the ANC’s recovery plan is its renewal programme which includes modernising the party and improving accountability mechanisms amongst others.
The provincial ANC Youth League Provincial Coordinator Ntswaki Mogobe said ANC leaders should learn from Gordhan by retiring on their own rather than wait to be ousted in an elective conference. Mogobe said the renewal project could only succeed if the aging liberation activists handed over the party to younger leaders.
“We are saying to the struggle veterans, handover the organisation. You cannot talk renewal without placing the youth at the centre of it. The ANC Youth League is an imaginary picture of what the ANC should be like. Stop worrying yourselves as elders as to who leads the youth league. Ten years or so ago leaders of the ANC decided to silence the youth league ( by expelling Julius Malema who was league president at the time). The results of that reckless move is that we are now struggling to convince youth to vote for the ANC. The biggest losses we suffered on May 29 was at institutions of higher learning,” said Mogobe also taking a swipe at the SACP saying its national chairperson Blade Ndzimande presided over massive corruption at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme costing the ANC the youth vote.
Director at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Neeshan Bolten was even more scathing, questioning the ANC’s choice of MK claiming that some of them were involved in the so called state capture.
“If you really want to honour PG then don’t allow that which he stood against to continue. You have got to self correct. Why are people that he exposed for being involved in state capture back in parliament MPs of the ANC and other parties,” he said.
Bolten also revealed that Gordhan had just been diagnosed with cancer when he was hospitalised and then succumbed to the illness in just a few days.
He’s expected to be buried on Friday in Durban.