Former African National Congress ANC Presidents such as Jacob Zuma, Kgalema Motlanthe and Thabo Mbeki will be roped in at Luthuli House to assist the governing party ahead of the 2019 general elections.
ANC Secretary -General Ace Magashule says the party resolved at its elective conference in 2017 to deploy more staff on a fulltime basis at its headquarters in Johannesburg.
The party faces a mammoth task of reclaiming lost ground following the bruising 2016 local government elections where it lost control of three key municipal metros.
The fulltime officials include former Police Minister Fikile Mbalula, who is head of elections, former party Spokesperson Zizi Kodwa, who is taking over as head of the ANC presidency, and Senzo Mchunu, the former KwaZulu-Natal premier who now heads the organising committee.
ANC Deputy Secretary-General, Jessie Duarte, has emphasised that the ANC will work as a “team”. She has reiterated that the ANC’s new dawn now includes working with the opposition on the land distribution program.
“On the issue of the policy perspective on land, the panic is in fact being stimulated by some people including our good friends who are going overseas to talk about SA being another Zimbabwe. That is absolute nonsense and the question of land distribution cannot be an ANC decision only. It’s got to be a national decision and every South African who understands that the future does lay in growing and undermining poverty will work with us on this question.”
