South Africa

January 8th statement — a look back at some of the ANC’s most memorable anniversary moments

President Jacob Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa greet ANC Supporters on 9 January 2015 at Cape Town Stadium. ANC hosted a number of lavish birthday celebrations this past weekend. President Jacob Zuma made a plea for investors to invest in the party saying that Democracy is expensive and the party needed financial support from the business community. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Esa Alexander)

By Victoria O’Regan

8 Jan 2025

The ANC will deliver its January 8th Statement to what will ostensibly be a much smaller pool of supporters than it has been used to. We take a look at a few of the more memorable moments of past ANC anniversary celebrations.

2012: ‘Enjoy the champagne’

The ANC marked its 100th anniversary in January 2012, spending big bucks on its centenary celebrations. Africa’s oldest liberation movement turned 100 to a celebration of song and dance, fireworks and the popping of champagne bottles at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, where tens of thousands had gathered for the festivities, The Guardian reported.

Read more: ANC at 100: how the world saw it

At the end of the mass rally on Sunday, 8 January, then deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe proposed a toast, and awkwardly told the remaining supporters that if they did not have champagne, they could take photos of their leaders drinking, or raise clench fists.

“The leaders will now enjoy the champagne, and of course they do so on your behalf through their lips,” he said.

Then deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe on the last day of the ANC National Conference on 20 December 2012 in Mangaung, Free State. (Photo: Gallo Images / Foto24 / Felix Dlangamandla)

2017: ‘There is a new leader in town’

The year 2017 marked a new era of leadership for the ANC. At its electoral conference in December, Ramaphosa was elected to succeed Zuma as head of the party, closing the book on Zuma’s presidency.

In January 2018, Ramaphosa gave his maiden January 8th Statement as ANC president at Absa Stadium in East London.

Arriving 45 minutes late for the 106th anniversary celebration, Zuma made his way to the stage amid boos from swathes of ANC supporters in the 16,000-seater stadium, News24 reported. According to the publication, some hecklers shouted “you don’t belong here” and “Zuma, you thief”.

mantashe zuma Gwede Mantashe and Jacob Zuma at the ANC Policy Conference held at the Gallagher Convention Centre, Gauteng in June 2017. (Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee)

The former ANC president was booed again when Ramaphosa acknowledged him before delivering his statement, according to the News24 report.

In a memorable put-down, ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe reportedly told Zuma: “Comrade, there is a new leader in town, and if you are late, you will get left behind.”

2018: Mr Punctuality

When Ramaphosa stood up to give his first January 8th Statement as leader of the ANC in East London, in January 2018, he signalled that things would be different – starting with time management.

Ramaphosa delivered the NEC’s statement exactly on time at the ANC’s 106th anniversary celebrations on 15 January 2018, according to a Business Day report.

“Nelson Mandela would have been very pleased to see that we are starting our things on time,” Ramaphosa said.

Read more: ANC’s 106th: Ramaphosa’s speech – low bar, high expectations

President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Siyabulela Duda / GCIS)

Pointing to his wristwatch, he said that everything, from then on, would begin on time.

“When we say we will start our meeting at a particular time, that meeting must start without fail. That is what the ANC should be doing as an example going forward,” said Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa and other ANC members’ promise of punctuality, however, seems to have let up in recent years. The President is notoriously late for “family meetings” and media conferences.

2018: ‘Cake politics’

In January 2018, a DA member in the Eastern Cape made headlines when it emerged that she had baked the cake for the ANC’s 106th anniversary celebration.

Nadine Taylor from East London said she was approached by two customers who were ANC members to bake a 152cm cake for the celebration, TimesLive reported.

Her husband accompanied her to the stadium on 15 January 2018 to deliver the vanilla, chocolate and caramel dessert.

Then DA national spokesperson Phumzile van Damme had told TimesLive that, as far as it concerned her, no DA member was barred from doing business with the ruling party. The DA “is not engaged in cake politics,” she said.

2022: the Twilight zone

President Cyril Ramaphosa faced reality when his speech to guests at the ANC’s 110th birthday gala dinner in Polokwane, in January 2022, was eclipsed by a power outage. The President, keen to conclude his 45-minute long speech, continued speaking for a couple of minutes in semi-darkness before his visibly on-edge security detail escorted him from the venue.

It seemed none of the guests or ANC leaders bought the then ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile’s story when he tried to spin that the outage was merely a “technical glitch”, passing on the blame to the venue managers, Daily Maverick reported.

2022 was among the worst years on record for load shedding by the monopoly power utility Eskom. The near-constant rolling blackouts and return of Stage 6 power outages kneecapped South Africans, with no end in sight.

Read more: South Africa passes 200 days of rolling blackouts – and counting – as 2022 draws to a close

ramaphosa power outage Bodyguards near President Cyril Ramaphosa during a power outage at the ANC’s 110th birthday gala dinner in Polokwane. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla / Daily Maverick)

Stories of politicians becoming entangled in the travails of regular folk tend to be perversely appealing to the public because of the sense they give of the curtain being pulled back on the gritty reality faced by those who are not protected by power and privilege.

When they happen to darken important political engagements, so much the better.

2022: Renewal? What renewal?

On 30 January 2022, the ANC Free State held its 110th birthday celebrations at Kgubetswana Stadium in Clarens, Free State. It later emerged that a company, found by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to have potentially fraudulently benefited from a multimillion-rand PPE procurement tender, had been hired by the provincial ANC to supply the event equipment for this birthday bash.

Read more: Company involved in dodgy PPE tender was hired by Free State ANC to provide equipment for birthday bash

C-Squared Consumer Connectedness had received two irregularly awarded personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts from the Free State government, the SIU found. It was among 3,066 service providers probed by the unit in its investigation into the procurement by the government of goods, works and services associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the report, the SIU found evidence that former Free State provincial treasury CFO Monaheng Mokoena may have committed fraud by making misrepresentations on quotations submitted when bidding for the tender and on the goods procured.

Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation David Mahlobo (second from left) joined the celebration of the ANC's 110th anniversary at Kgubetswana Stadium in Clarens, Free State on 30 January 2022. (Photo: Supplied)

The then Free State ANC interim provincial committee spokesperson Oupa Khoabane said the company’s services had been secured before the SIU report was made public on 25 January, but admitted that concerns had been raised by some ANC members.

The provincial leadership’s use of C-Squared’s services came on the back of the ANC National Executive Committee’s (NEC) tired promises to renew the organisation and pull the plug on corruption – promises which Ramaphosa repeated during his January 8th Statement in Polokwane.

Ramaphosa was keen to attribute corrupt behaviour in his party to State Capture, but the SIU’s investigation into PPE corruption during the pandemic showed how deep the rot within the ANC was.

2025: The future looks… small

On Saturday, 11 January 2025, Ramaphosa will face ANC supporters in Khayelitsha Stadium in Cape Town for the 113th anniversary celebrations of the ANC.

As Daily Maverick’s Stephen Grootes wrote, the stadium has a capacity of only 22,000, a far cry from the FNB Stadium which can hold 100,000, which the ANC used to fill with ease.

Read more: Mbalula vs Yengeni as ANC cracks whip on discipline

cape town 2015 Then president Jacob Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and then deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa greet ANC Supporters on 9 January 2015 at Cape Town Stadium. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Esa Alexander)

The ANC in Mpumalanga has subsequently decided that the province’s branches will not attend the ANC’s celebrations on Saturday, due to the small venue, according to a News24 report.

The last time the party held its January 8th celebration in Cape Town was in 2015, when the ANC under Zuma’s leadership used the 58,000-seater Green Point Stadium. DM

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