SA in 2017: The year of politicking dangerously
A watershed year ahead for SA politics as the ruling party is forced to make drastic changes or lose out in 2019
Hold on to your hats, because 2017 will be a watershed year for SA politics. True, that line may have been used to describe every year in living memory, but this time the description is truly appropriate. The year will define the direction that the ANC takes as it hosts not one, not two, but three crucial conferences. The two routine conferences are its midyear policy conference and its end-of-year elective conference, which is the big one. But, attached to the midyear conference will be a consultative conference over the organisation’s future, which will include concerned veterans and an array of interested parties not normally at the formal conferences. Crunch time for ruling party The policy conference is the one to watch. It is where observers can begin to get an outline of — to use ANC language – the "balance of forces" in the party. In short, whichever faction comes out tops at the policy conference is likely to win the battle for party leadership at the end of the year. But t...
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