Against all odds, the ANC emerged from Mafikeng alive and kicking, report Wally Mbhele, Sechaba ka’Nkosi and Marion Edmunds
The African National Congress emerged from its 50th national congress in Mafikeng last week invigorated and more united than it has been since taking the reins of government in 1994.
This was all the more extraordinary as only days before the movement had limped into the conference.
Even though there are no real challengers for power among the political opposition, the ANC, on December 16, was an organisation at once divided within itself and not having yet managed to cross the Rubicon from a liberation movement struggling against apartheid to a ruling party presiding over a modern and sophisticated state.
But the 3 000 delegates attending the conference seized the moment, emerging solidly united as a force ahead of the 1999 general elections. President Nelson Mandela’s departure from the party’s helm was managed with aplomb and fears of possible leadership strife were allayed.
The morale among many grassroot structures coming into the conference was low as they felt marginalised by the leadership. The party had experienced a series of bruising leadership struggles, with a number of top leaders having exited the party. The leadership was also on the rack for not sharing information with the general membership.
The manner in which it had adopted the growth, economic and redistribution (Gear) strategy as the party’s official economic policy, and the opposition to it from leading members of the tripartite alliance, was likely to lead to fractious debate and recrimination.
The branches were in a weak state, characterised by inexperienced cadreship, a lack of understanding of the challenges of the new situation, inactive membership, lack of political programmes, poor communication and administration and ongoing internal conflicts.
This state of affairs, according to the report of acting secretary general Cheryl Carolus, had resulted in an absence of mass recruitment.
Mafikeng was to be a stern test of the leadership.
The conference also had to grapple with an uneasiness in relations between the ANC and the South African Communist Party, which in recent months had begun to emerge into the public eye.
This discomfort was recognised by Mandela himself, who, in his chief address to the conference, remarked on the tension between the two organisations and within the democratic movement as a whole.
“With regard to this relationship [with the SACP], we must accept that new answers have to be found to the new questions that life has posed and will continue to pose. There is no need to take fright when differences emerge, especially as we must be aware that complex as the questions are, so will be the answers.”
After five days of robust debates on issues stretching from economic transformation, governance, the character of the ANC, peace and stability as well as social transformation to service delivery, the miraculous was achieved: delegates emerged from the conference speaking in one voice.
Perhaps the most significant triumph was the leadership’s ability to downplay all criticism on Gear. After vigorous debates, the delegates were persuaded to adopt it as the party’s economic strategy, although Mandela hinted that in order to accommodate the alliance partners the ANC may in future amend some aspects.
The watershed nature of this conference places it among the ANC’s other defining historic conferences — the 1949 conference that adopted the Programme of Action in Bloemfontein, the 1969 Morogoro conference, and Kabwe in 1985.
The ANC has repeatedly shown itself able to adapt to changing historical circumstances, and 1997, in which it evolved into a party of government, was no exception.
“The conference demonstrated the maturity of the ANC’s membership who were not sidetracked and distracted from their course by demagogy and posturing by anybody,” said Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Pallo Jordan, who returned to the limelight with a third place finish in the national executive committee (NEC) elections.
“Delegates were sober-minded, and in that respect they confounded the predictions and analysis of all the pundits who were talking about the delegations being so youthful,” said Jordan.
As far as government policy is concerned, according to Jordan, its endorsement was not without reservations.
“But I think the conference was an occasion for people to discuss the government’s policy, and to understand it better. The fact that Cabinet ministers fared so well was an affirmation of policy,” said Jordan.
Of all the four ANC conferences he has attended, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Kader Asmal, felt the Mafikeng conference was the most “lively and vital, stimulating and tiring. It means the ANC has identified how the need for discussion should not so much be regulated, but organised.”
“Of course, the retirement of President Mandela was the most significant thing. The conference demonstrated the continuity reflected in the life and times of Mandela and the need for transformation,” added Asmal, who came second in elections for a new NEC after Cyril Ramaphosa.
“The president’s injunction at the end — that we must never forget who we represent and where we came from — was important. The building of cadre policy, what kind of members we want to have, what sort of role they play and the need for discussion must include all members.”
This injunction by Mandela was inspired by the realisation of how branches used to be important structures of mass mobilisation and the building blocks of the ANC in the past.
The conference resolved that there is a need for a co-ordinated programme to ensure that they are strengthened and become effective. That is the challenge that still awaits the ANC in the new year.