THE motion to scrap or review the step-aside rule was defeated at the African National Congress (ANC) policy conference.
This was a boost for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s camp ahead of the December elective conference.
The move to challenge the rule was a test for both factions, with the powerful KZN bloc leading the charge. However, as a policy conference is not constituted like an elective conference, the motion was prevented from being included in the programme. It was referred to commissions and failed to gain momentum when only one representative was deployed for a debate.
Closing the conference on Sunday, 31 July, Ramaphosa told delegates that the conference overwhelmingly agreed to keep the rule. He said there were, however, concerns it was not being implemented consistently.
“We have reaffirmed the resolutions of the 54th National Conference on corruption and state capture,” he said.
Ramaphosa said it was agreed that consistency concerns should receive urgent attention to make sure that guidelines were implemented fairly.
Speaking about the State Capture Report, Ramaphosa said delegates agreed with the approach so far but urged that the recommendations of the report form the basis for a society-wide effort to tackle corruption.
Ramaphosa said debates were polite and even when delegates did not agree, they communicated in a respectful manner.
Following three days of engagements over policies, recommendations will be handed over to the elective conference in December. Among the recommendations were that unemployment be declared a national emergency but it was not clear how this would be done.
Ramaphosa urged delegates to continue discussions at branch level over the coming months.
