AFTER spending two days slamming factions in the ANC, secretary-general Gwede Mantashe yesterday drummed up hopes that the fractured party can achieve unity ahead of the elective conference in December.
Gwede told journalists on the sidelines of the party’s national executive committee special meeting at Irene, outside Pretoria, that with hard work they could still achieve unity.
“It’s never a pipe dream to talk about building unity for an organisation. It’s what you aspire towards. You set it as an objective and invest time and energy. When we are united, we can do better as an organisation,” he said.
Mantashe had been interacting with communities over the past two days, denouncing factionalism within the party which he warned would destroy the ANC.
At a Bekkersdal mini rally, Mantashe appealed to the conscience of branch members, saying they should wake up and beware of lobbying groups who were walking around with bags of money to buy their votes.
“We must make it our business that unity must be head of everything. Factions will destroy the movement. Factions are self-serving – they don’t talk about the organisation.”
Mantashe yesterday said the NEC was meeting to discuss the draft statement for Sunday which was set to give direction to the cadres about the challenges to tackle in the year ahead. He added that since Tuesday members had been deployed to various parts of the province to interact with and mobilise supporters to attend the main celebrations at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
Mantashe said President Jacob Zuma apologised for joining the campaign late after he arrived yesterday on the first day of the NEC meeting.
He was hopeful they would fill the 40 000- seater stadium on Sunday, and said that should they fail they would be disappointed.
