The issue of whether either of the two most senior officials in the African National Congress should occupy equivalent or corresponding positions in the government was up for debate in the build-up to the 1997 Mafikeng conference.
With regard to the deputy presidency, in 1994 the issue had not arisen. Walter Sisulu was deputy president of the ANC when it attained democracy, but he chose not to go to Parliament and did not assume deputy presidency of the country. The subsequent election of Thabo Mbeki as deputy president of the ANC, however, resulted in correspondence between the two most senior positions in both the ANC and the government.
The question then arose of whether a principle needed to be introduced in this regard. The discussion document Challenges of Leadership in the Current Phase argued that this need not be the case. Among other reasons, this was influenced by how we entered the government in 1994, as part of a government of national unity, in a manner that weakened the ANC. We also needed more officials working full-time in the ANC.
The discussion document elaborated on the pros and cons of the two approaches: “While the issue of ‘a single presidency’ is appre-ciated, the question has been posed whether the ANC deputy president should automatically translate into deputy president of the country.
“There are obvious disadvantages of having two deputy presidents (ANC and government):
- It may create a sense of ‘two centres of power’ and friction between them. This will undermine an integrated approach to both the government and the ANC, and perpetuate the false notion of two ANCs;
- Both the president and deputy president should get/receive mandates from the ANC conference to ensure that the movement as a whole participates in determining who the country’s deputy president should be;
- While it is critical that the secretary general and other officials are full-time in the ANC, one of the most critical tasks in the current phase is to use the main lever of change — the state — to good effect, and the presence of both the president and deputy president of the ANC in the government will help ensure this.
“However, the following advantages of having two deputy presidents of the ANC (one in ANC and one in government) need to be considered:
- This will allow the new president the time and space to select the country’s deputy president taking into account the needs of government, whereas the ANC’s organisational needs may dictate election based on entirely different criteria;
- It may undermine broader cadre policy to seek to elect a deputy president for both the ANC and the country in preparation for succession beyond 2009 — if the next president serves two full terms. Rather than cast this in stone, in the form of a ’10-year guarantee heir-apparent’, it should evolve naturally over the years, with a wider pool of young cadres from whom the leaders would be elected;
- The deputy president of the ANC does not have to be based necessarily at national government level nor even full-time in the ANC. This will allow the ANC the space to select from a wider canvas of leaders, rather than being constrained by the narrow requirements of the government.”
With regard to the presidency, Challenges of Leadership assumed that presidency of the ANC would automatically translate into presidency of the country, but it emerged later that this was an incorrect assumption. There were strong views on either side. The issue was ultimately resolved at the 1997 conference, when it was decided that the ANC constitution would not impose such a determination: the president of the ANC need not necessarily be the ANC’s candidate for presidency in the government.
Thus it is clear that positing of “two centres of power” in the context of the relationship between the ANC and the government is to create a non-debate. It may be that, in practice, tensions develop from time to time with regard to supervision of cadres in the government by ANC structures. In effect, this would be a tactical, organisational challenge of the ANC as a whole, at all levels of the government, rather than simply a consequence of having a president in the government who is not president of the ANC.
It could also be argued that, to the extent that the ANC is meant to oversee the work of the government, a non-antagonistic tension between the “supervisor” and the “supervised” should be taken as natural and healthy. The ongoing challenge would be one of management of such relations, not the total elimination of tension as such.
At national level, the relevant processes are as follows:
The national conference of the ANC should elect the president of the organisation and other members of the national executive committee (NEC);
Through the list process, including a national list conference, the ANC should elect its public representatives for Parliament;
The ANC’s NEC should identify the ANC’s candidate for presidency of the country, who plays a leading role in the election campaign; and
Guided by the NEC, the ANC’s public representatives in Parliament nominate and ensure the election of that candidate as president of the country.
These then are the broad principles that should be taken into account in discussing this matter. It is critical that we do not raise the politics of expediency to the level of tactics — let alone principle. The issue is not so much about an ANC presidential candidate that anyone may prefer: it is rather about the principles that should guide our approach in addressing this question, and the timing in relation to the movement’s internal processes. Also at issue is loyalty to the constitution of the ANC, which bars no ANC member in good standing, who meets relevant criteria, from availing him/herself as ANC presidential candidate, and which does not decree that a particular individual, by dint of some contrived “tradition of the movement”, should be ANC president, come 2007.
Joel Netshitenzhe is a member of the national executive committee of the ANC. This is an edited version of a piece from Hlomelang, the online publication of the ANC Youth League