Marion Edmunds
ALARMED by increasing internal tension and a range of government crises, the African National Congress is embarking on a soul- searching, stocktaking campaign to draw the party together in the run-up to its national congress in December.
The head of the ANC’s political education department, Joel Netshitenzhe, said this week that the party would start a national discussion on key issues, which could see its constitution redrafted at the December gathering.
Eight draft position papers will be discussed at an informal meeting in Johannesburg this weekend to kickstart the process.
The meeting will be attended by 50 to 60 leading members of the ANC and alliance partners – the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Delegates will include national executive committee members, provincial chairs and secretaries, chairs of parliamentary standing committees and heads of departments at the ANC’s headquarters.
Papers to be delivered – compiled by senior alliance members – will include a review of the party’s strategy and tactics, set down in a document at the last conference in 1993.
One paper will deal with “the character of the ANC” and another will look at handling discipline, debate and dissent within the party. There will be a paper on international relations, one on the controversial national question (managing the relationship between ethnic groups within the ANC and society), and a paper on gender issues.
There will also be a paper examining the Reconstruction and Development Programme, and how best the alliance could achieve social transformation. Another paper will look at the question of what calibre of leaders the ANC needs, since the people to be elected in December will spearhead the 1999 election campaign.
There has been much media speculation this week that Netshitenzhe would be nominated as ANC deputy president in December, succeeding Deputy President Thabo Mbeki who is expected to take over the party’s presidency.
ANC MP Blade Nzimande says discussion on candidates is premature: “The critical question is not, in the first instance, that of leadership. It is about reflecting on the past three years, asking what lessons we can learn from them.
“The second question is to look at preparations for the 1999 elections in a serious way, as well as at the character of the ANC and what sort of organisation it should become.
“The national working committee has asked people to set up political discussion on these issues and only after these discussions will we be placed to say who should lead the organisation. If we do not have these discussions, we will end up at the congress discussing an agenda set by the media.”
Meanwhile, there are deep currents of alarm swelling across the ANC leadership at what is perceived to be a failure to deliver on its election promises, and an inability to harness government.
This alarm is felt particularly among leaders in the provinces, many of which are in serious administrative disarray and vulnerable to escalating corruption. The failure of national government to reform and invigorate the public service is, in many instances, seen as the central problem.
“There is an admission that we are running into serious problems … there is an element of panic about governance and delivery,” said one senior provincial ANC leader.
One of the best-kept secrets within the party is the so-called Ncholo reports – audits of the all provincial administrations conducted by the Ministry of Public Service and Administration and international experts over the last year.
The reports have been withheld from the media and opposition parties in legislatures because they are deemed too sensitive.
But sources say they are being discussed within ANC provincial structures and that debate is heated.
The Ncholo reports of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga administrations are understood to be particularly damning, starkly revealing a lack of financial controls.
Another perceived problem is the developing gulf between the ANC in government and ANC supporters on the ground – a difference in perception and political understanding evident in conflicts such as the violent border revolt in Bushbuckridge.