THERE is a common belief that the ANC’s fiery four — Winnie Mandela, Bantu Holomisa, Peter Mokaba and Rocky Malebane-Metsing — are too powerful and too popular among the grassroots for the party to deal with them firmly and adequately. This is a myth that needs to be
Most of the power and influence of these four comes from their association with the ANC and the platforms, power, resources and influence it has given them. Remove these, and they will be all alone — apart from each other — and without patronage to dispense and power to wield.
Their power-bases — the Women’s League, the Youth League — are weak, full of sound and fury, but mobilising nothing.
Take Mrs Mandela. A three-pronged political strategy would deal with her: deprive her of access to the ANC’s platforms and resources; send President Nelson Mandela in to win over her key (and isolated) areas of support, such as Phola Park; put some real reconstruction and development programme resources into these areas. That would leave her high and dry, and the political shenanigans she would undoubtedly get up to would matter little.
Even if she did hold on to support, the ANC is strong enough not to be too concerned. It has a clear majority, a firm hold on parliament and the constitutional assembly and control of seven of the nine provincial governments. Why then does it have to be so defensive and cautious in confronting these
The truth is the ANC has never been particularly good at dealing with such problems. It always placed unity above all else. While this may have been an understandable necessity in exile, there is no justification for such nervousness when you are the elected government with a powerful majority.
Arch political gamesplayer Thabo Mbeki is working to keep the troublesome four within the ANC, rather than drive them out. This means that the first deputy president is spending his time dealing with recurring headaches, rather than national problems of greater
His approach is too clever, by half. What is needed is not political games, but political annihilation.