ANC’s January 8th birthday rally to be smaller, as virus infections surge

It will be smaller, but the ANC still hopes to pack a punch when it celebrates its 109th birthday in Polokwane next month.

ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile, who is on the committee organising the party’s January 8th rally, said that organisers would be meeting overnight on Thursday in Limpopo to discuss plans.

“Normally on the eve (of the rally) we’ll have a dinner of a thousand people, but next year it will be a dinner of a hundred people or even less,” he said.

The rally is set to take place on the second weekend of January and normally kick-starts the ANC’s programmes for the year. Next year’s rally will be especially important as it comes at the start of a local government elections year during which the party hopes to regain complete control of some the key metros.

The size of the rally has in recent years also been used to gauge support for the ANC, and especially for the president, with stadiums constructed for the 2010 Soccer World Cup packed with tens of thousands of people, and minimal booing being interpreted as a sign of popularity.

ALSO READ: Daily Covid-19 update: 184 more deaths bring total to 24 011

If current Covid-19 restrictions will still be in place in about three weeks’ time, President Cyril Ramaphosa is likely to read the January 8 statement to a group of no more than 250 people outdoors in his home province.

Mashatile said: “We are deploying ANC NEC members throughout provinces so they can have smaller meetings there. We are not inviting any other people to come to Limpopo, only the top six.”

The plan is to livestream proceedings to the provinces, either through big screens or to have branches assemble in small groups to watch the live broadcast on television.

“Our programme is going to be very different this time. It is forcing us to be creative and it can also be very efficient,” he said.

Mashatile said the Covid-19 lockdown, which started at the end of March, had forced the party to adapt to new ways. “By January 8th in Kimberley [earlier this year], who would have thought we are going to have our meetings by Zoom?”

He said the party would also have to take into account the projections for next year’s Covid-19 infection numbers. “If the situation is worsening by January we are going to have to re-look our plans and activities,” he said.

ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte is set to address a press briefing in Polokwane and online at noon on Friday to give details about the party’s plans for next year’s celebrations.

Questions have been raised about the party’s insistence to go ahead with the celebrations – which usually entails walkabouts and smaller rallies ahead of the big one – after Ramaphosa announced stricter measures in an effort to curb the rapid spread of the virus earlier this week.

So far Limpopo has been spared the worst of the recent resurgence in reported Covid-19 infections, with hotspots having been declared in the Eastern Cape and the Garden Route in the Western Cape, and numbers spiking sharply in Cape Town and Durban, which are popular with holidaymakers this time of the year.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.