ARTICLE: ALL ABOARD FOR THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT?
2015-10-27
In his remarks to the ANC’s National General Council on 9 October 2015 President Zuma provided some crucial insights into how he views his Alliance partners and how he foresees their future relationship after the goals of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) have been achieved. (President Zuma’s comments in isiZulu are indicated by italics.)
President Zuma spelled out the ANC’s role as follows:
“The ANC, the leader of the Alliance, is a multiclass national liberation movement advancing the NDR, the primary objective of which is the establishment of the National Democratic Society, which is united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous. That is the objective of the ANC.”
President Zuma is understandably unhappy with the treatment he receives from the media – and particularly from the print media. He is regularly depicted with a shower emerging from his head. Artists paint him with his genitals exposed. He is castigated for corruption and the media continue to hound him over the expenditure of R246 million on his retirement home. 
In his address on 15 October 2015 to the Higher Education Transformation Summit in Durban, Deputy President Ramaphosa made the following statement:
Almost all South Africans agree that our country is in a crisis. Most government departments are paralysed by incompetence, corruption and a culture of entitlement.
Former President FW de Klerk and the staff of the FW de Klerk Foundation and its Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) would like to extend their congratulations and best wishes to Archbishop Desmond Tutu as he celebrates his 84th birthday.
The ANC must be congratulated for the care with which it prepares its members for important policy discussions of the kind that will soon be taking place at its 2015 National General Council. The NGC is the most important ANC meeting between National Conferences. It gives the organisation an opportunity to consider progress made with the implementation of policy since the preceding National Conference and to develop proposals for new policies at the next National Conference – which will take place at the end of 2017.
Twenty-one years after the establishment of our new constitutional democracy minorities have very little to celebrate on Heritage Day. The vision of a vibrant multi-cultural society with a mosaic of cultures and languages coexisting harmoniously in mutual toleration and respect has not been realised.