ANC membership up
2005-06-30 12:05
Cape Town - The ruling African
National
Congress (ANC) now has a membership base of 440 708 according to the
organisational report tabled on Thursday.
The report - produced by party secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe -
states
that membership is up from 385 778 at the party's national conference in
1997
at Mafikeng when President Nelson Mandela still headed the ANC.
It rose to 416 846 at the national conference at Stellenbosch in 2002.
The report noted that when a physical audit of membership and branches
was
held ahead of this week's national general council - the policy making event held by the party in between national conferences every five years - the
membership stood at 401 463. This figure applies to membership in February.
The organisational report acknowledged that membership tended to grow in
the run up to provincial and national conferences and declines thereafter.
Membership registered at recent provincial conferences put the overall
number of members at 440 708 with the highest membership registered by
KwaZulu-
Natal with 75 035 members. Significantly this is the province where the ANC
snatched power from the long dominant Inkatha Freedom Party in provincial
elections in April last year.
The Eastern Cape - long viewed as the heartland of ANC support - records
the second highest membership with 70 651 members, with Gauteng coming in
third
with 58 223 members. This province, however had shown the largest spate of
growth since the pre national general council audit when membership stood at
just 41 639.
Western Cape showed a decline
Only the Western Cape showed a decline in this period from 37 588
members
in February to 33 141 members on the roll at its recent provincial congress.
Significantly membership in KwaZulu-Natal has risen from 66 676 to
75 035
between February and its recent provincial conference.
The ANC has ruled South Africa since 1994 when it won the first
non-racial
democratic elections. In last year's national election is gained nearly 70%
of
the vote - up from about 63% in 1994. It commands the most support in all
nine
provinces and took power in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape last year.