The Military Veterans’ Association in the ANC may be diminishing in importance, but its support is still crucial for those who need backing for their course.
For party president Jacob Zuma, who is losing support from the ANC Youth League Â- which drove his campaign for presidency in 2007 — the military veterans’ association comes in handy.
The military veterans lost their status as a constitutional structure with voting rights when MK was disbanded in 1993. The military veterans’ association was formed three years later as a “special interest structure”, said ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza. The military veterans’ political influence may be growing thin within the ANC, but its voice can still make a difference. “It can lobby and it works to a certain extent. It puts its voice across by means of press conferences. It also uses its historical role and sentiment to get recognition in the ANC,” said a national executive committee (NEC) leader.
ANC insiders say the support and respect the association receives is “moderate” and comes mainly from people who are aligned to the president because of the role it played in his campaign.
The legal woes that resulted in Zuma being fired as the country’s deputy president and his campaign for ANC presidency both played a critical role in reviving the association’s political relevance after many years of silence.
Said chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe: “2007 worked. When we sat down, we realised that comrade Jacob Zuma is on his own. We organised ourselves and we spoke out.
“Most of our people [in the ANC] were afraid to speak out against Thabo Mbeki. We were the first ones to speak out and others followed.” The association is hugely handicapped because it does not have voting status as a structure. It was defeated in its attempt to secure these rights at the 2007 conference in Polokwane.
Declining membership
Maphatsoe said the majority of delegates argued that the association’s membership was declining. “We think the MKMVA was denied its rightful place to vote. Some of the people who differed with us said ‘you’re dying anyway’, some said ‘you’re not a growing organisation’,” Maphatsoe said. Instead of awarding it voting rights, the ANC formed an extra league, the ANC Veterans’ League (ANCVL), for members who have served the party for an unbroken 40 years.
“They are a diminishing structure. When their members die they cannot recruit more members. The only thing that needs to be done is to take care of them,” said an NEC member who was a delegate at Polokwane. Maphatsoe defended the association’s relevance in spite of its declining membership. “Yes, the generation of the military veterans is declining but it’s not declining that sharply to say the MKMVA does not have a role to play.”
ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza said that in spite of the MKMVA’s lack of voting status in the ANC, the military veterans were accorded the necessary respect within the party: “It is an entity that acknowledges the role of Umkhonto weSizwe in the struggle.”
Members of the MKMVA were catered for in all the ANC’s leagues, he said. “They straddle. Some of them fall under the veterans’ league, some are in the women’s league, but MKMVA members are ANC members in their individual capacity.”
The military veterans are pushing ahead with their political campaign in spite of this. Maphatsoe said the association’s strategy was to encourage its active members to participate in ANC branches and in the party’s political school, as confirmed at last year’s national general council in Durban.
In an apparent signal that the organisation plans to return to the political stage as ANC members prepare for the party’s elective congress next year, Maphatsoe said it would reclaim the space its members created in 2007.
“We made a mistake by thinking that we had achieved our goals and sitting back and letting the NEC run the ANC. Now, we are pushing every member of the MKMVA back into ANC branches. “In 2012 we must have our people in the ANC NEC,” he said.