A loud crowd burst into the hall singing and chanting militant slogans just before Pan Africanist Congress deputy president Motsoko Pheko was about to deliver his address to the party congress in Umtata.
What got the conference room buzzing was the fact that among the crowd was a contingent of about 100 youngsters, some young enough to be in primary school. They were delegates who had come to chart the path forward for the 43-year-old organisation that has ambitions of one day becoming South Africa’s ruling party.
National executive council (NEC) members said Pheko had bussed in the children to boost his chances of getting the top job. But Pheko blamed general secretary Thami ka Plaatjie, another presidential hopeful, for the shenanigans.
The children had no idea why they were spending time away from their parents.
One group said thought they were going to the zoo. They started crying when the subterfuge was exposed and demanded to be taken home. They were housed at a school 15km from the University of the Transkei in Umtata, where the congress was held, supposedly so they would not meet other delegates.
A rumour circulating at the congress, which later assumed the status of fact, was that Pheko had slaughtered the children a cow to thank them for their contribution to his inevitable victory.
The imbroglio over the children was just one of the reasons why the PAC should do us all a favour and wrap itself up in a parcel tied firmly with a pretty red ribbon never to be opened again.
Since its inception the PAC has struggled to position itself as a credible political movement, and it has remained unstable with a divided leadership.
The party headed off to its national congress last week with four candidates contesting the presidency, once again illustrating these divisions. But even those who had long written off the party were taken aback when, after three days of deliberations, it nullified its own congress because of reports that some voters were not party members.
After all the planning, the campaigning and the plotting, all the money spent, all the speeches and all 1 289 delegates having cast their votes, the PAC’s leaders decided that the congress had not taken place and that the party should plan to go through the process again some time next year.
Even by the PAC’s own chaotic standards, this was an extreme move.
In his opening address, party president Stanley Mogoba urged delegates to ensure that the PAC was positioned to take power.
”Shouldn’t we swear to make this congress the last congress of an opposition PAC, shouldn’t we position ourselves for government …?” he asked.
But how can his party envision governing South Africa when it can’t even organise a three-day congress?
Cameron Tabane, president of the PAC’s youth wing, said the child delegates were given false names and branches to memorise and were told to pose as party members. But many were failed by their memories and their cover was blown. A slew of delegates forgot their names and branches and only remembered they were meant to vote for Pheko as president, claimed Tabane.
Though presidential contenders Maxwell Nemadzivhanani, Mogoba and Ka Plaatjie objected to the children’s presence, it was a constitutional amendment made at the PAC’s last congress in 2000 that allowed the situation to arise. Under pressure from its student wing to give all members full rights, the PAC voted to allow all Pan Africanist Students Organisation members full voting rights.
Pheko, who denied having had anything to do with the children, said that candidates who had expected to win wanted to nullify the election when they realised they were losing the race.
”These people who have lost the elections [that were nullified] must stop talking about kids and about slaughtered cows. It sounds silly,” he said, denying claims that he had slaughtered a cow in celebration because he thought he would win the election.
But this being the PAC, party leaders didn’t think the weekend’s events were any great issue.
Mogoba said that the incident would benefit the party’s campaign in the next elections in 2004 because the unanimous decision to postpone the congress reflected the unity of the party.
”Before congress there was a tendency to fragment the party according to candidates. Hype was created and there was an increase in tensions. Because the idea of sustaining the congress came from the members and then the NEC discussed the proposition and agreed with it, the congress developed a strong feeling about the state of the party,” he said.
Even the PAC’s international allies were prepared to perpetuate the party’s myths about itself.
Omali Yatshitela, leader of African People’s Socialist Party in the United States, said the only reason the PAC fared badly in the last elections was because the African National Congress had US government support.
”I was there. I saw Clinton campaign for the ANC,” he told the congress on Saturday.
Minutes later, Ka Plaatjie, showed just how out of touch with reality the PAC is.
”Viva Saddam Hussein, viva”, ”viva Robert Mugabe, viva”, ”viva Osama bin Laden, viva” and ”down with the United Snakes of America, down”.
Perhaps it’s time for the PAC to close shop and go out quietly while it still has the support of 0,8% of the electorate and to avoid the embarrassment of declining support in the 2004 elections.