Populist power: Halfway through the Government of National Unity’s reign, the ANC struggles to save face after the very public clashes among its leaders
Stefaans Brummer
EATING “a lot of meat with local people” in rural Transkei is what Bantu Holom isa did in the pre-Christmas days. This may not be as innocuous as it sounds. The ex-military leader of a bantustan, the former African National Congress fi rebrand dumped from a deputy ministerial post and the party, has been an irrit ant to the same party perhaps exactly because of his ability to bond with ordi nary folk.
The Holomisa affair – a storm in a teacup that rocked the ANC because of the w ay it was handled – may have reminded his erstwhile comrades of some of the di fficulties that face newcomers to power.
The ANC, always on the side of right during the fight against apartheid, disco vered that the kudos it earned pre-1994 would not grant it automatic immunity from criticism – from without and within – and it hurt. And the ANC found the “broad church” it had built, a cohesiveness more easily maintained in the face of a well-defined enemy, suddenly threatened by new centrifugal forces.
There have been tiffs over personal ambitions, disagreements over the shape of post-apartheid South Africa and squabbles over how to achieve it. In some cas
es the structures created by the negotiations that heralded transition, such a s the nine provinces and their somewhat ambiguous relationship with the centre , set the scene.
It showed in the cracks that developed in the tripartite alliance over economi c policy, the Sarafina II uproar, the anger in some quarters over Free State p remier Patrick “Terror” Lekota’s “redeployment”, and the open challenge to top ANC leaders, including President Nelson Mandela, when Northern Province Premi
er Ngoako Ramathlodi was not re-elected as provincial party chair in spite of their inte rvention.
But perhaps Holomisa’s fate put into the clearest perspective the ANC’s attemp ts to deal – rather haltingly and not always correctly, according to some even within the ANC – with these new challenges.
The Holomisa affair gave this focus not because the immediate issue was so big : it all started with his mid-year testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation C ommission over casino magnate Sol Kerzner’s money finding its way to Public En terprises Minister Stella Sigcau’s purse when she was still a homeland ministe r, a small remark in a much larger submission.
But Holomisa, the single-minded former military man, would not back down when apologies were demanded. A public slanging match ensued, and escalated. Becaus e of his popularity – he polled the highest number of votes in the party’s 199 4 national executive committee (NEC) elections – and perhaps because his acces sibility and directness had made him a favourite with the media, Holomisa just refused t
o go away.
The ANC had always had its share of internal disagreements, but now for the fi rst time in government it was faced with a very public confrontation within it s leadership corps. Holomisa clashed with Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who wa s charged initially with resolving the perceived Holomisa/ Sigcau spat, later saying Mbeki had “wholly misrepresented” things.
Then it was Mbeki and Sports Minister Steve Tshwete whom Holomisa charged took favours from Kerzner, and eventually Holomisa’s political “father”, Mandela h
imself, who was dragged into allegations over Kerzner’s election donation to t he ANC. The ANC’s initial denials, later corrected by Mandela, heaped embarras sment on the party.
Perhaps the greatest spectacle of all was when Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale t ook the bait of Holomisa’s insinuations about “drug-trafficking, Chris Hani’s death, the purchase of his mansion and his relationship with Stocks and Stocks “. Sexwale’s widely quoted response – “I do not debate with scum” – earned him the censure of his own party. As a spin-off, a media leak over Mbeki’s earlie
r alleged attempts to probe the drug allegations led to a thinly concealed flare-up of a nimosity between Sexwale and Mbeki.
The end result was Holomisa’s expulsion from the ANC, dealt by a disciplinary committee on August 30 and confirmed by a unanimous NEC decision a month later . The charges he was found guilty of centred around “bringing the party into d isrepute”, but ironically the initial charge over the Sigcau remark to the tru th commission was dropped.
For the ANC it had become an issue of where to draw the line, now that it was under greater media scrutiny as governing party, between “insubordination” and healthy public debate. In Holomisa’s case, few party members would see the pu
blic slanging as having been healthy for the ANC itself, though some will stil l argue the blame for its escalation should not have been heaped on Holomisa a lone. Inde ed, Mandela acknowledged at an NEC meeting in November that the affair had bee n managed “badly”.
Where exactly the line was drawn appeared to many ANC members as too authorita rian, and in conflict with the party’s own commitment to transparency and inte rnal democracy. “You don’t think about sticking your neck out for fear of gett ing your head chopped off,” one ANC member of parliament told the M&G.
Another comment from an MP: “The ANC is still a broad liberation movement. The different class, racial and other tensions have to be held together. One can
do this by keeping channels of debate open … or by clamping down on dissent – which turns the organisation into a pressure cooker.”
The handling of Lekota’s dispute with party officials in the Free State, Raymo nd Mhlaba’s departure as Eastern Cape premier and the Northern Province party elections, among others, reinforce the impression of a party managed from the top in disregard of its own constitutional structures.
Not all hold that view. Outgoing ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa, whose own “redeployment” in the business world may well relate to the fact the leade rship tussle between himself and Mbeki had become too robust for the party to handle, told the M&G in November: “This is a central thread that runs through all the developments within the ANC this year – through Rocky Malebane-Metsing , through Bantu, through Winnie [Madikizela-Mandela] … The ANC is reasserting itself a s an organisation … and it feels good to be in that type of ANC.”
As for Holomisa, he has signalled the possible formation of a new party. Shoul d discontent with and within the ANC, and the popularity of the new party’s le aders, including Holomisa, lead it to even partial election success, the ANC m ay just have to reconsider its strategies for dealing with internal dissent.