Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) leader Zackie Achmat, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Gwede Mantashe are some of the names being touted by leftists within the African National Congress for the party’s national executive committee.
Lobbying to place left sympathisers in the national executive has commenced as the battle for the ANC’s soul begins ahead of the party’s national conference to be held in Stellenbosch in December.
Besides electing the six office-bearers, hundreds of ANC branch members from across the country will descend on Stellenbosch to elect 61 members to the national executive committee.
ANC branches will start putting forward their formal nomination lists in the coming weeks. The lists will then be presented at respective provincial general councils where they will be finalised and endorsed by the provincial executive committees.
Insiders also said there are moves afoot to seek representation of all sectors of society in the national executive.
Asked one ANC member: ”Why should only ministers and deputy ministers be allowed to participate in the national executive as observers and ex officio members? Why shouldn’t sectors like civil society and religion also be allowed to participate?”
ANC national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama declined to comment. He said he would respond in due course.
The ANC national executive committee’s perceived failure to grapple with the government’s controversial Aids stance, which led to intervention by Nelson Mandela earlier this year, has prompted leftists in the party to consider pushing in party members with strong activist credentials. Party insiders say escalating food prices, job losses and poverty are forcing party members at the grass roots to evaluate the representation of the interests of the poor at the ANC’s national executive committee.
Said an insider: ”We want to put in principled people who will actually debate issues and not get intimidated nor get co-opted as people have in the past.”
Party members point out that the only two strong leftists in the current ANC national executive — South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande and his deputy Jeremy Cronin — often get marginalised in debates. Both members are likely to be voted back by the left to the national executive committee. Attacks from the ANC’s leadership on the left within the party have been mounting since last year’s strike called by Cosatu and the SACP against the ANC-led government’s privatisation plans.
Another said: ”We need to put in at least 10 strong leftists and I think that will make a big difference.”
Party insiders say Achmat’s name is already being bandied about in his branch in Muizenberg, Cape Town. But the members are tight-lipped about the identity of the provinces that could nominate Madisha and Mantashe. Madisha hails from Limpopo and Mantashe is based in Gauteng. Both trade unionists are active ANC members.
The leftists in the ANC claim that attempts to lobby for the inclusion of Achmat, Madisha and Mantashe in the provincial lists have already elicited the ANC leadership’s interest.
Achmat is on study leave and was not available for comment. Madisha declined to comment.
Some claimed that the possibility of their election to the national executive was instrumental in bringing about President Thabo Mbeki’s attack on the ”ultra-left” at the opening of the ANC’s national policy conference. Last week Mbeki launched an open attack on Cosatu’s leadership in his weekly online column on the party’s website.
Pronouncing that the ”masses are not blind”, Mbeki accused the Cosatu leadership of using workers to ”destroy” the ANC by making them go on a general strike last week. He wrote: ”They should also have known that the people know that, historically, those who opposed and worked to destroy the ANC, and tried to mobilise the workers to act against our movement, were the same people who sought to entrench and perpetuate their oppression.”
Last week members of the national Cabinet also attempted to question the TAC’s credibility at a press conference on Cosatu’s general strike. The TAC had supported the strike while demanding a more effective public health system.
The other left-leaning names under consideration for the national executive are Robben Islanders Ben Martins and George Mashamba. Both ANC members also sit on the SACP’s central committee.
SACP central committee members Limpopo’s MEC for Education Joyce Mashamba, ANC MPs Yunus Carrim and Rob Davies, trade unionists NUM vice-president Crosby Moni, South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union’s first vice-president Xola Phakathi and Cosatu’s Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich are others being positioned by the left.
Some ANC branches in KwaZulu-Natal feel that Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe and Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who hail from their province, are not likely to feature in lists from the province.
An ANC branch chairperson said: ”Members are not impressed with their performance in their portfolios. They do not like the things Manto had to say about Aids and nevirapine. Radebe and Minister of Public Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi are being associated with last week’s strike — we feel they are not doing their job properly.”
Radebe was not voted back to the SACP’s central committee at its 11th congress in July this year.
Among the other left-leaning members under consideration for the list are two public servants — Thami Mseleku, the national departmental head of education, and Mpume Sikhosana, the head of the Public Service Commission, who have been described as progressive thinkers.
The leftists have already identified nine existing national executive members, whose re-election to the committee is described as ”doubtful”. They are former education minister Sibusiso Bengu, diplomat Jesse Duarte, former ANC North West provincial secretary Jomo Khasu, former politician turned businessman Jay Naidoo, the ailing former intelligence minister Joe Nhlanhla, Northern Cape Health MEC Dipuo Peters, and Mpumalanga’s MEC for Agriculture Candith Mashego-Dlamini.
Khasu, Peters and Mashego-Dlamini were not elected to the national executive at the last ANC conference in Mafikeng in 1997. They are among nine members who have been brought in by the ANC executive as members since 1997. The others are Mpumalanga’s MEC for Safety and Security Thabang Makwetla, ANC Women’s League deputy president Thandi Modise, deputy presi-dent Jacob Zuma’s political adviser Ebrahim Ebrahim, Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau, defence secretary Che January Masilela, Tshabalala-Msimang and deputy home minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. Party members feel that these members will be pushed in again by the ANC leadership.
They have replaced 10 people who have left the elected national executive members list. Three of these were ANC provincial chairs — Popo Molefe, S’bu Ndebele and Ngoako Ramatlhodi — who have since become ex officio members. Four members — Steve Tshwete, Peter Mokaba, Alfred Nzo and Joe Modise — have died and the remaining three — Tito Mboweni, Gill Marcus and Mac Maharaj — have formally withdrawn from active politics.
Tony Yengeni, the former ANC chief whip in Parliament, whose name was linked with alleged kickbacks from the R67-billion arms deal, is apparently back in the ANC leadership’s good books and is unlikely to be replaced.