The African National Congress (ANC) National General Council (NGC) had to diagnose the party and reflect on issues hampering its support base growth, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.

Delivering a political address, at the beginning of the summit in Midrand, Zuma said negative perceptions had formed against the ANC.

“We thank the millions of our people who voted ANC in the last elections. It was a difficult election as will be explained in the organisational report. While celebrating the 2014 electoral victory, we also acknowledge the fact that our majority has not been growing during each election,” said Zuma.

“Some of our traditional voters have, in recent years, become dissatisfied … We must not take this support and loyalty for granted nor think it will be there forever. The NGC needs to undertake a frank assessment of the state of the organisation and identify those issues that make our traditional support base unhappy.”

Zuma said ANC membership numbers had declined to less than a million people since 2012.

He blamed the decline on “manipulation of members”, particularly at branch level.

“The ANC had more than one million members during the centenary in 2012, the number has decreased to 769 000…we now have less than one million members,” he said.

“Tendencies such as gate-keeping, bulk buying of members and manipulation are problems facing the branches. A new kind of gate-keeping has emerged, where a branch is kept at a certain number, so that it could be controlled, and thus stopping those who love the ANC from joining the party.”

Keeping numbers to a certain level at branches, has resulted in members being used as voting fodder, Zuma said.

“They rubber stamp decisions, [and] such will not be tolerated.”

The branches were taking decisions on party matters, and not the leadership, he said.

For this to change, branches should be strengthened.

“We need to empower the branches, some are not functioning as well as others, others are facing difficulties, and need to be freed from the tendencies that have crept into the party.”

Zuma said the ANC membership application processes should also be improved as those who apply waited too long to receive membership cards.

He also warned against factionalism and ill-discipline growing within the party.

Earlier on Friday, thousands of jovial ANC delegates sang and danced as party leaders made their way to the podium.

Draped in party colours, cabinet ministers and members of the national executive committee took their places inside the plenary hall. They sang revolutionary songs praising their party and Zuma, while waiting for proceedings to start.

Some 4 000 delegates are attending the conference which ends on Sunday.