ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday promised that the governing party will create 2.5-million “job opportunities” over the next five years.

Ramaphosa was delivering the party's election manifesto at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban.

He said his party will focus on six priorities including job creation, investing in people, defending democracy and advancing freedom.

“We will continue to build a better Africa and the world. The ANC is looking at the next 30 years, we are not looking in the past — we are not only looking at the next five years,” he said. 

Despite conceding the ANC has had failures, citing municipalities as an example, Ramaphosa said the party had learnt from its mistakes and with its experience was the only party fit to govern, 

He promised the government would provide more support to struggling municipalities.

Thousands of ANC supporters filled the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban, including an overflow area to listen to Ramaphosa.

The rally was Ramaphosa’s latest show of force in a province where not just his party’s dominance is waning, but is also the home turf and power base of the ANC’s newest arch enemy, former president Jacob Zuma. 

Thousands stood for hours in smothering heat awaiting for the president, delivered a fiery speech in which he called for “a decisive victory” in the May elections. 

Ramaphosa committed the ANC to advancing industrialisation as a driver of economic transformation, protecting strategic existing industries, like steel, and advancing the industries of the future including increasing investment in a large-scale social and economic infrastructure plan.

He said the ANC would continue to pursue the realisation of universal quality basic services and the provision of a social wage through education, housing, transport, water, sanitation, electricity, health care and communications.

Ramaphosa was elected mainly on a promise to end corruption and clean up the ANC. He is now seeking a second and final five-year term in elections which will take place in three months. 

He emphasised defending democracy and advancing freedom through clean governance. 

“[We will] tackle corruption, improve public accountability, strengthen investigation and prosecution capabilities and ensure severe consequences for corrupt activities in the public and private spheres.”

Ramaphosa assured supporters that accountability will go alongside consequence management.

Ramaphosa also seemed unbothered by Zuma’s MK Party breakaway, saying “others were removing themselves from the ANC, they don't belong here in the ANC. There is no place for those who are factional.” He added the ANC will make sure it's represented by the “finest leadership” in the next administration. 

He called on supporters — “the real spear of the nation”- in a clear snub of Zuma’s Mkhonto Wesizwe (spear of the nation), to work together to defend freedom from forces that seek “to use this election to undo the progress of democracy”. 

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