Tough choices await the ANC

It takes much less than prophetic political foresight to surmise that the African National Congress will emerge from Stellenbosch with either the same national executive committee or an insignificantly different one. For this reason, our intellectual energies are better focused on the challenges that may confront the post-Stellenbosch ANC and its ability to pursue the imperatives of the national democratic revolution.

The monumental achievements of the ANC exist alongside its glaring political ineptness and policy deficits at the level of governance. The past eight years may seem to have tested every dimension of the ANC’s political management capacity: its strategies; its cadreship; its ability to deal with the changing interests of its membership; the impact of unfolding classes within itself and South African society in general; and ultimately its ability to prudently govern South Africa within the context of a hostile global political climate.

The ANC as a governing party still has to adequately grapple with a plethora of issues, such as class inequalities, race relations, the North-South divide and many others, which are critical to socio-political relations across the globe. Indeed, the post-1994 South African socio-political life has boulders and rocks strewn along the way. In many ways, these difficulties arise because political management consists not only of choices between good and bad policy paths, but sometimes the choices to be made are between equally legitimate, yet untested paths.

In essence, the real dilemma facing the ANC has been the fact that South Africa’s transition is complex and replete with international interest of a class and racial nature, some of which may be reflected within the ANC leadership and membership in general. At the level of governance and management of political challenges, the ANC is faced with the task of putting into practice its old theoretical generalisations in a hostile global environment and a transition so complex it may soon assume the character of a status quo. The national goals of the ANC that find explicit articulation in many of their documents must begin to shape what happens in the government administration.

The new state, in which the ANC is the ruling party, exists to champion the aspirations of the historically oppressed black majority, many of whom continue to be victims of the menacing dogs of dehumanising poverty. This task of the new state must inform every programme to implement many of the good ANC resolutions. Or else all hope that accompanied the birth of this state may tumble and turn into civil strife.

The ANC’s immense political talent, some of which lies in waste and remains dormant, partly because of the Machiavellian insecurities of modern politics, must be put to better use so that the party may maximise its political capacity. So the first step for the ANC may be that of its deployment strategies.

At the centre of the internal issues facing the ANC is the unpredictability of human interests. Like all liberation movements, when it assumed political power, what seemed like commonality of political goals during the anti-apartheid struggle tends to be a possibility only by coincidence of individual power interests not by the nobility of political resolve.

The ANC must seek to strengthen policy accountability if its resolutions must find expression in the manner in which the government is run. At the moment it seems that at the level of policy the ANC tends to be at the behest of ministers, MECs and bureaucrats.

No less onerous to the party is the pervasive emergence of the new oligarchy that acts in alliance with the bureaucratic and political bourgeoisie. The ANC needs to be vigilant about the effects of this oligarchy, which consists of cloned middle-class upstarts, bent on riding on the back of the ANC to amass wealth and power, to loot and plunder state resources at the expense of the party’s constituency. Because power is not only located in the political spheres of South African life, the ANC may well deal with the fact that its image is also tainted by government bureaucrats, collaborating with the private sector in the process of tenders. This collaboration, too, is not only a result of human avarice, but also the insecurity of individuals within our political system. The opportunism and avarice of the aspiring elites riding on the ANC compounds the existing problem of an economy and knowledge base that are still largely in white hands.

The ANC may also learn from the its 1985 Kabwe conference, which displayed an ability to combine discussions on profound political issues with those on the basic political conduct of its members, including its leadership. And central to the ANC’s ability to confront the difficulties of that hostile period was the profundity of Oliver Tambo’s leadership, which seemed to rise above the seeming political insecurities of our times. Leadership is thus critical to the ANC’s ability to manage what may threaten to muddy its credible political history.

It seems also that many in the ANC have developed a chronic inferiority complex in relation to their obviously capable president. However, while organisational disciple is important, the uncritical manner in which the ANC seems to deal with some of Mbeki’s ideas is a threat to the life of the party, its capacity to debate with itself and ultimately the political growth of Mbeki himself. It is incumbent upon all of us, but on ANC members in particular, to ensure that a leader of such intellect does not self-destruct and perish along the route taken by the great Kwame Nkrumah. There have been moments when it seemed that Mbeki the great intellectual is a liability to Mbeki the president.

Linked to this question is the curious issue of whether the ANC may want a third term for its president. The fundamental difficulty here is its seeming inability or unwillingness to imagine its post-Mbeki existence. There are many reasons for this. It actually may not be Mbeki’s fault at all, for Mbeki may only seem like a wolf because he is surrounded by sheep and people who have adroitly linked their political and economic survival to the survival of his presidency. In many instances, such political manoeuvres parade as ”loyalty and support for our leadership”.

The post-Stellebosch ANC will have to confront certain realities about the tripartite alliance, beyond the sporadic verbal skirmishes. There is a need to interrogate the applicability of the two-stage theory to deal with post-apartheid South Africa. The allies’ endemic inability to confront the real ideological and theoretical challenges and the possibility that, beyond the defeat of the apartheid state, very little compels them to be in alliance may prove costly. The conspicuous absence of the ANC president from the South African Communist Party Congress is not as insignificant as some may have us believe. The unnecessary use of one-size-fits-all labels like ”ultra-left” may not assist this ailing alliance at all. It’s time to take decisions.

The envisaged ANC constitutional amendments to deal with those members who violate policy are understandable, for no political formation would tolerate such violations. However, if I were Jeremy Cronin, Blade Nzimande, Willy Madisha or Zwelinzima Vavi, I would read the small print in these amendments very carefully. Remember, there are two types of people: those who take cover when the clouds are gathering, and those who wait until the storm hits them.

There is great need to evaluate whether the coalition with the New National Party has any political value for the ANC or the people of South Africa. It must be noted that the NNP, at the door of political death, has managed to get mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from both the official opposition and the ruling party. While political expediency, and hopefully not any slave mentality, may explain the ANC’s embracing of the NNP, unity between the ANC and other predominantly black political formations may offer South Africa better results than flirting with a party responsible for all the cruelty suffered by the black majority.

The ANC must begin to deal with its tendency to retreat to the laager when even constructive criticism is leveled at it by the media and civil society. Often the party regards such criticism as an expression of animosity.

The demise of many political parties on the continent originated from the failure to derive benefit from the collective wisdom of society.

Soon after the conference, the ANC will have to deal with the possible growth of discontent among the masses. It may have to take decisive action to deal with those who use it to pursue narrow agendas of a personal, ethnic, racial or class nature. The policy deficits in education and economic development may require the ANC to take decisive steps.

The ANC must also begin to deal with whether there is a need for provincial legislatures. In many instances chronic political ineptness has emerged at provincial level.

If the ANC can deal with all these tendencies and shortcomings that militate against the achievements of its goals, the founding fathers like Isaka Ka Seme, John Dube and Sol Plaatje may rest peacefully in their graves, knowing that their blood and sweat have not been turned into ghosts that haunt the people they sought to free.

Muzi Sikhakhane is a Johannesburg-based advocate and political analyst

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