- Former president Thabo Mbeki was the keynote speaker at the 2021 Chief Albert Luthuli Memorial Lecture on Friday.
- He reflected on former president Nelson Mandela's presentation of the political report at the 50th national conference of the ANC in 1997.
- This dealt with the negative feature of "careerism within ANC ranks".
Former president Thabo Mbeki says the ANC has attracted and retained opportunists and careerists, who use their access to state power to enrich themselves rather than serve the nation.
He addressed careerism within ANC ranks at the 2021 Chief Albert Luthuli Memorial Lecture on Friday evening.
Mbeki reflected on former president Nelson Mandela's presentation of the political report at the ANC's 50th national conference in 1997. At the time, Mandela stated that "a number of negative features within the ANC and broad democratic movement have emerged during the last three years". He said the organisation had an inescapable responsibility to attend to these matters frankly and decisively, in defence of both its movement and revolution.
"One of these negative features is the emergence of careerism within our ranks.
"Many among our members see their membership of the ANC as a means to advance their personal ambitions, to attain positions of power and access to resources for their own individual gratification," Mbeki said.
Mandela had stated that the organisation found it difficult to deal with such careerists decisively.
The party had to take all necessary measures to purge itself of such members, said Mbeki.
At the ANC general council in 2000, speaking as president, Mbeki had stated that the ANC, as a mass movement for social change and a governing party, had produced "a result with which we must contend and which comrade Nelson Mandela dealt with when he presented his political report at our last national conference".
"The result I am talking about is that we have attracted into and continued to retain opportunists and careerists within our ranks. These are the people who join the movement not because they respect or support any of the strategic objectives of our movement," said Mbeki on Friday.
"They join with great ease that our procedures as a mass movement permit with the sole aim of furthering their personal careers and using their access to state power we have as a ruling party to enrich themselves," Mbeki said.
During the virtual lecture, he said Luthuli had believed the liberation of South Africa would make an important contribution to the development of Africa and the Pan-Africanist perspective.
"Where are we with regard to the task of the liberation movement towards South Africa as spelt out by Nkosi Luthuli and, secondly, where are we with regard to the achievement of the vision for Africa advanced by Chief Luthuli?
"I believe that it is self-evident that for the ANC to remain loyal to the commitment Chief Luthuli made – that it would carry on the programme of Africa liberation and freedom for all to the best of its ability – it would have to retain its character as a true servant of the people.
"This matter is central to everything, I would like to say in the lecture," he said.
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