ANC takes January 8 rally to Moruleng

By Molaole Montsho

The ANC’s January 8 Statement rally will be staged in the Bojanala District of the North West next year, placing the party’s flagship annual event at the centre of an increasingly competitive political battleground.

The rally will take place at Moruleng Stadium in the Moses Kotane Local Municipality on January 10, marking the governing party’s 114th anniversary.

The ANC’s National Executive Committee resolved in August that the 2026 January 8 celebrations would be hosted in the North West, a decision the party said reaffirmed its long-standing principle of rotating the annual commemoration among provinces.

Founded on January 8, 1912, the ANC has traditionally used the occasion to release a major political statement outlining its priorities and programme for the year ahead.

The choice of Moses Kotane places the party squarely in a municipality grappling with persistent service delivery challenges, including water shortages, sanitation backlogs, deteriorating roads and housing pressures. The largely rural municipality consists of 107 villages and the two formal townships of Mogwase and Madikwe.

The 2026 January 8 Statement is expected to signal the ANC’s strategic direction ahead of the upcoming municipal elections, which are shaping up to be tightly contested across the Bojanala region.

In Rustenburg, the ANC failed to secure an outright majority in the previous local elections and currently governs the municipality through coalitions with other parties.

 The political landscape has since grown more crowded, with new formations such as the Rustenburg People’s Party and the Lethabong Service Movement entering the fray at the local level in Bojanala. The African Spear Movement, a newer entrant, contested elections at the provincial level.

At the national level, Save South Africa, based in Brits, and the newly formed Purple Party Ikageng, headquartered in Rustenburg, are also expected to contest the elections, with the potential to draw support from the ANC’s traditional voter base.

At its 2025 January 8 Statement delivered in the Western Cape, the ANC acknowledged that South Africa continues to face deep-seated challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

The party committed itself to a three-point plan aimed at restoring public confidence: strengthening the economy’s capacity to create jobs and wealth; improving the quality, integrity and accountability of government services across all spheres; and renewing and rebuilding the ANC to provide ethical and decisive leadership in line with the vision of the Freedom Charter.