The ANC needs to regain the love of South Africans to reclaim its position as a leader of society, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa said. According to IOL, Ramaphosa was speaking at the East London City Hall ahead of the governing party's 106 birthday celebrations and the January 8 statement, which will be delivered on Saturday.
"Our country is leaderless without the [ANC] providing leadership. Our country yearns for the leadership of the ANC," he reportedly said.
Ramaphosa vowed that the ANC would deal with corruption, and said the party needed to regain its strength for the 2019 elections.
"We will continue dealing with the problems of corruption and those thieves that are stealing public funds. We want to make it clear that the African National Congress is deadly serious about making sure that the ANC becomes the ANC of great dreams, of great principles and becomes a united ANC... This ANC that you were reviving must be strong enough, must be powerful enough, must be effective enough, must be impactful enough in order to win the 2019 elections and we will be giving a clear warning to all these other Mickey Mouse parties that ANC is back," he said.
The Herald reported that Ramaphosa called for an end to factions, and called on the party to unite behind the newly elected party leadership.
"We have a unified leadership and out of this we are going to forge unity and make sure this leadership speaks in one voice," he said.
"Infighting among the leadership must come to an end now.
"These skirmishes and fights we used to see should have been buried at Nasrec -- we are all ANC and we owe no allegiance to an individual leader."
Ramaphosa also called on the party to be unified. According to Eyewitness News, he said: "Whether you like it, or you don't like it, you will be united."