After 1990, the African National Congress Youth League leadership aggressively engaged key leaders of the ANC on various matters, including political succession. The result of this produced, in the ANCYL’s opinion, three key leaders for the next generation, namely Thabo Mbeki, Chris Hani and Jacob Zuma.
When Hani died, the leadership of Mbeki and Zuma became stencilled in the collective psyche of the ANCYL. There is plenty of evidence over the past 15 years to demonstrate unwavering support for both. The choice of Mbeki as a successor to Nelson Mandela and Zuma as an alternative/successor was pursued aggressively.
To our surprise, a number of people, known to be anti-Mbeki, were chosen to serve as Cabinet members. Understanding that leaders need to foster unity, however, the league never engaged with Mbeki on this. Sadly, it is our understanding that the same group is now involved in a malicious campaign to isolate and destroy Zuma.
Those who cast doubt on Zuma’s abilities as a worthy successor to Mbeki based merely on references to a ”generally corrupt relationship” with Schabir Shaik, are unlikely to be surprised by the support the ANCYL will continue to give to him.
It is the task of some comrades to synergise the seemingly contradictory positions of the government and the ruling party and Joel Netshitenzhe is one of the most formidable writers the ANC has ever produced. He has become one of the foremost proponents of ANC policy and is accustomed to rigorous debate. In the ANCYL, some of us could not but have enormous respect for him. However, a lot of what he articulates (in the article alongside) is cause for concern.
Since the 1980s, Netshitenzhe has displayed a degree of discomfort about succession debates. For him, it would seem, the ”timing” of such a discussion is always a problem. In our experience, however, it is difficult to be idle — especially in a situation where senior members of the movement consistently treat the ANCYL as one of many factions and lobby groups to be used in their shameless quest for power. It would be irresponsible for ANCYL leader Fikile Mbalula and his colleagues to allow ”surprise leaders” to be sprung on us at the last minute.
Creating doubts about leaders who are duly elected in the highest decision-making forums of the ANC, by deliberately misrepresenting the intentions of delegates, is mischievous. This reading of the delegates’ intentions and participation in ANC conferences, and the tendency to see unconventional wisdom in the movement as immature and uninformed, smacks of arrogance. The same sentiment was expressed in the ANC over the wisdom of the 1956 Alexandra bus boycott, the 1961 Sharpeville march, Soweto 1976, and the Soweto rent boycott, as well as with the establishment of organisations such as the Congress of South African Students, the South African Youth Congress, the National Union of Mineworkers, and later the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
It is not correct to label negatively those who genuinely and openly believe in a given cadre of the movement, as we have seen recently. It has been disturbing to see the ANCYL, Cosatu, the South African Communist Party and others represented as pro-Zuma factions — as if there were any formally proposed candidate other than Zuma.
Those who are raising issues about the league’s ”timing” on the succession debate have, so far, been incapable of introducing any alternative candidate. The ANCYL is well within its rights to challenge suggestions that undermine leaders formally proposed by properly constituted organs of the ANC and its allies to lead our movement beyond 2007. It is difficult to understand how it can be argued that this debate is ”ill-timed” when it has been raging for 15 years.
Thando Mzolo is a former member of the ANCYL and a member of the ANC’s Tembisa branch. This is an edited version of his response to Joel Netshitenzhe, which appeared in the ANCYL’s online newsletter, Hlomelang