The powerful showing of former Mass Democratic Movement activists at last week’s elections for the African National Congress executive demonstrated just how keen the movement’s rank-and-file members were to ensure a balance of forces in their leadership.
The “populists” — who dominated the top 10 rankings in Bloemfontein three years ago — suffered a severe setback. Delegates opted instead for Cabinet’s technocrats, those with a proven track record in government.
But the big news was the stunning comeback of the former MDM with Cyril Ramaphosa topping the national executive committee (NEC) list, days after Patrick “Terror” Lekota — also an ex-MDM activist — had made Minister of Sport and Recreation Steve Tshwete eat humble pie to become ANC national chair.
Close on Ramaphosa’s heels were Cabinet ministers Jay Naidoo, Trevor Manuel, Dullah Omar and Mohammed Valli Moosa. The four were key activists in the MDM.
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Pallo Jordan, a former exile who is nevertheless seen as a dissident from mainstream exile thinking and who was almost driven into the political wilderness last year, scored third-highest.
Jordan’s interpretation is that it laid the Africanist bogey to rest: “If you look at the thrust and the vision of those people who were talking in terms of an Africanist thrust, if there was any Africanist threat, it has been completely buried … The first 10 positions do not reflect that in the least, so you have a reaffirmation of the ANC’s non-racial character.”
Phillip Dexter, a South African Communist Party member elected to the NEC, said he thought delegates went for a strong balance . “They want people from the executive who can get on with delivery and governance … Apart from gender, if you look at the cross-section of age, race, political background and experience, you have a dynamic mix of people.”
Speaking off the record, a leading ANC member said: “The kind of people who thought they would get away with smoke and mirrors were trounced. Prior to the conference, the old NEC, particularly leaders from the government, were panicking, saying 80% of the conference delegates had never come to the conference before.
“They were behaving as if they were an uneducated, illiterate mass, but the way in which the delegates out-performed their leadership was startling. It will be interesting to see how this manifests itself in the new NEC.”
Human Sciences Research Council analyst Vincent Maphai singled out the showing of Cyril Ramaphosa as significant. “I thought that having left active politics, he would not have fared as well as he did. It raises significant questions about about what his future should be.”
Another ANC official thought that partly because so many leadership issues were discussed in advance, a fair amount of consensus was reached beforehand. “The fact that so many people in Cabinet were returned on to the NEC is a demonstration of confidence in the Cabinet.”