African National Congress (ANC) Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu says the party’s caucus in Parliament has learnt from its mistakes and has vowed it will never repeat them. Mthembu was briefing the media following the last caucus meeting of the party and the address by its president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
This comes amid a new survey that indicates that the ANC may get around 55% of the national vote in the 8 May general elections. Mthembu has admitted that they should have acted differently during the Nkandla scandal where the party stood steadfast in its support of former president Jacob Zuma.
He says the party has stuck to the resolutions of its 2016 Caucus Lekgotla where it vowed never to do anything illegal again. “In the 5 years yes there were difficult times but of course we are just human. We have committed errors and the errors that we have committed, we are very sorry. But a commitment we made is that we will not repeat those mistakes as the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa whether in the 6th Parliament or in the 7th Parliament because we have learned from our own mistakes.”
The poll also shows the party falling way below the 50 % mark in the province of Gauteng. Mthembu says, however, that the results will galvanise them to work even harder. He says they aim to return with an increased majority after the May elections.
“When we are worried we even forget about our factions. When we are worried, you will see us at work. When we are threatened with losing state power, you know because we have seen that these coalitions never assist our people and we are not working towards a coalition government, even in Gauteng. We are working on being the governing party there.”
