The booing of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema by delegates at the South African Communist Party’s special conference in Polokwane last week has intensified a groundswell of opposition to communists within the ANC.
The growing hostility towards the left is manifested by the mounting pressure on Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general, to choose between the two hats he wears — as an ANC leader and as the SACP chairperson.
Mantashe came under attack this week by ANCYL structures in different provinces, with Gauteng calling for him to be disciplined.
But beyond the youth league, the Mail & Guardian spoke to ANC national executive committee members and provincial leaders who said that, since the booing incident, many ANC members are taking an active stance. ‘Attitudes are hardening from people who ordinarily would not care, and when they take sides, they always choose the ANC,” said one official.
In one publicised case the ANC’s Siyanda regional secretary in the Northern Cape, Deshi Ngxanga, announced his decision to withdraw from the SACP in response to the humiliation of Malema.
In solidarity
Ngxanga confirmed his resignation, telling the M&G, he had taken the step in solidarity with Malema.
The battle between Malema and the communist party has been interpreted as a proxy war by those vying for senior positions in the party, to be decided at the next ANC national congress
in 2012.
The dominant view in the ANCYL is that Mantashe should yield the secretary general’s position to Fikile Mbalula, formerly ANCYL president and now deputy minister of police. The ANCYL has accused Mantashe of failing to defend Malema because his two roles are in conflict.
‘It is not about principles, it is personalities at play. We are in a new phase of our national democratic revolution. Now power comes with being ministers and with fears that you could lose your position. It is these fears that make people position themselves in this manner,” said a senior leader close to Zuma.
However, in interviews conducted by the M&G, it emerged that although senior ANC members are not happy about Mantashe wearing two hats, this does not necessarily translate into support for Mbalula.
Too much work
NEC members said that Mantashe has been compromised by his two roles because they involve too much work: ‘He is like the CEO of the ANC, which is the heaviest and most difficult job you can get. I’m not sure he can juggle it,” said one NEC member, also a top government official.
Some observers believe the ANC is suffering because of Mantashe’s role. ‘There are some improvements that can be made in terms of his work,” said the NEC member. ‘He needs to do his work and not be distracted.”
Said another NEC member: ‘We cannot sit with you [Mantashe] in a meeting and agree on things that we are discussing, then you later sit in another meeting and attack the same things we agreed on.”
This week ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said the removal of Mantashe as ANC secretary general was a non-issue, adding that it was out of order for anyone to call for him to step down now. But Motlanthe acknowledged that there were concerns about Mantashe’s conflicting roles. He said the matter had been raised in the ANC.
Motlanthe emphasised that it was important for anyone appointed as an office bearer in both organisations to behave in a manner that would not give rise to suspicions of conflicting loyalties. ‘The problem is that you can’t take leave from either position,” said Motlanthe.
‘Always secretary general’
After his spat with Mantashe at the SACP congress, Malema told journalists that he was speaking to Mantashe as the ANC secretary general and not the SACP chairperson because ‘he cannot take leave from himself. He is always the secretary general of the ANC, even when he is at the SACP conference.”
In a past interview with the M&G Mantashe argued that there was nothing wrong with representing both parties. ‘The most important thing is the discipline of being loyal to decisions that you make in structures,” he said. ‘If there is a view in the ANC and a decision is made, I can’t go out there and have a second bite.”
This week ANC president Jacob Zuma ‘raised concerns” about the booing of the ANC delegation at the SACP conference. He instructed the delegation to submit a full report to enable the NEC to engage the SACP early next year.
The ANC’s NEC insisted that it was not sufficient for the SACP to say an individual was booed, saying that both Malema and Billy Masetlha, the immediate targets, were part of one ANC delegation.
On Thursday Cosatu stated that it would not be derailed by a minority in the ANC leadership ‘who are small in number but with powerful friends in the boardrooms of big business”.
‘Rooi gevaar’
‘They are using rooi gevaar and anti-Cosatu and anti-communist rhetoric, (as well as) allegations of an imminent communist takeover of the ANC. They thrive on rumour and scandal-mongering, with all manner of claims that communists are gunning for certain positions in 2012. This tendency will stop at nothing, including the use of the race card and tribalism,” Cosatu said in its year-end report.
It also appears that the ANC NEC is itself divided on whether there is a threat of a communist takeover. Malema is known to believe that he enjoys the support of prominent NEC members including Mbalula, Tony Yengeni and his wife, Lumka, and Tokyo Sexwale, the human settlement minister.
The SACP has senior representation in the NEC through its general secretary, Blade Nzimande, and his deputy, Jeremy Cronin.
NEC sources said former president Thabo Mbeki had cautioned the party about leaders who wore two caps, but the warning was dismissed because of a perceived need to stand together against him in support of Zuma.
The notion that the leftist alliance partners are bent on seizing control of the ANC has long caused tensions within the ANC-led alliance. At the SACP’s 10th congress in 1998, Mbeki told delegates that they should not cause divisions in the ruling party in the hope that they could ‘build themselves by scavenging on the carcass of a savaged ANC”.
This article was part of a two-page spread in the Mail & Guardian’s lead story for December 18 to 22 2009. Read the other stories: