Ryan Coetzee
CROSSFIRE
When the Democratic Party first released All Power to the Party, a description and analysis of the African National Congress’s Cadre Policy and Deployment Strategy, many major newspapers simply ignored it. The one publication that devoted an editorial to the document rejected our analysis and, bizarrely, pronounced us “guilty of McCarthyism” for describing the ANC’s policy as Leninist.
This is surprising given the content of the cadre policy. In essence, it sets up ANC deployment committees at national, provincial and local level whose purpose is to deploy ANC cadres to “all centres of power”, including the “state machinery”, parastatals, statutory bodies and constitutionally enshrined independent authorities. Various ANC “discussion documents” also openly call for the extension of party control over civil society, universities, research and policy institutes, etcetera.
In terms of the policy, cadres are to be “informed by” and are “accountable to” the party, and also are subject to a conference resolution that demands “maximum political discipline”.
The ANC dismisses our concerns as “alarmist”, but declines to reconsider the policy or distance itself from the contents of the discussion documents (which are invariably authored by leading members of the organisation).
But while the ANC’s response might make some strategic sense, that of much of the media is quite disturbing. We can only assume from the silence that many journalists and commentators either fail to understand the consequences of the cadre policy, don’t believe it is real (despite the ANC’s confirmation that the policy is “no secret”), or simply don’t care.
Fortunately, recent revelations of the implementation of the cadre policy at local government level seem to have focused a few fuzzy minds.
A few weeks ago, the DP came into possession of a memorandum on the letterhead of the ANC’s De Aar region which called on local ANC structures to replace town clerks with ANC cadres.
The memorandum stated: “We have learnt that the council can make a motion towards the appointment of the election officers. Therefore, it is important that we should change the whole set-up so that we can have friendly and capable people for these municipal elections.
“You will also note that these are very important elections for us, therefore we can’t afford to lose such important elections. The town clerks should be changed and replaced by progressive comrades from our ranks.”
Initially, the ANC denied knowledge of the memorandum and claimed that it does not represent ANC policy. Shortly thereafter, however, it conceded that the document had originated in the ANC and that it had been written because of frustrations with the local town clerk.
While the ANC continues to claim that “it does not have a position that seeks to remove town clerks”, it has acknowledged that it is policy to appoint cadres to positions in local government, including the position of town clerk, where they become available.
In reality, this distinction is meaningless because once ANC councillors know that jobs are there for the taking, frustration becomes inevitable and pressure builds to remove town clerks from their positions.
The DP has already uncovered a number of cases in Mooi River, Knysna, Pietermaritzburg, Darling, Allenridge and Port Elizabeth where ANC councillors have become town clerks, deputy town clerks or senior officials over the heads of better qualified non-political candidates.
In the light of these examples, the true nature of the cadre policy becomes easier to understand.
Question: To get ahead in local government administration you should:
1 Study hard and become well qualified in public administration.
2 Work hard and gain experience of local government administration.
3 Become a loyal ANC member and get “in” with the local party bosses.
Answer: 3
And what are the consequences? At its most prosaic though by no means unimportant level, the cadre policy is a massive jobs-for-pals scheme. Inevitably, political appointees to various positions, from town clerk to the upper reaches of the public service, will provide citizens with an inferior service. Merit, hard work and ability are thrown out the window and replaced by loyalty to the party.
And it is at the local level that the policy begins to threaten the integrity of the electoral process.
More fundamentally perhaps, the cadre policy means that democratic accountability becomes increasingly little more than a theoretical component of the Constitution, while, in practice, senior public servants (such as town clerks), people in independent institutions, parastatals and perhaps even in civil society are made accountable to the party. Hence the name of our document: the power of the people is replaced by the power of the party.
Finally, the ANC’s most cynical justification for the cadre policy (the idea that it is necessary for the “transformation” of South African society) needs to be exposed for the lie it is.
The ANC routinely offers South Africans a false choice: either you support transformation or you are an apologist for apartheid. But if transformation means extending party power over the state and civil society (precisely the definition employed in one of the discussion documents) then it is not change at all, but a reversion to the practices of the National Party under apartheid when senior positions in the state and elsewhere were reserved for members of the Broederbond.
The cadre policy has got nothing to do with extending opportunities to black people disadvantaged by apartheid, it has everything to do with extending the power of the party and its leaders. Any suggestion that it is a kind of affirmative action is contemptible.
The ball is now firmly in the court of the opposition, the media and other champions of an independent civil society. Is the ANC going to be allowed to get away with this assault on the democratic order, or will it be exposed wherever and whenever it deploys its cadres?
Ryan Coetzee is head of strategy for the Democratic Party
ENDS