The rift that is said to divide the African National Congress into two competing camps is a bit like the Loch Ness monster. Sightings are frequently reported in the media. But no one has ever been able to locate the animal or verify its existence.
And, like the ever-elusive creature that is said to lurk in the dark waters of the Scottish highlands, the myth of deep-seated divisions in the ANC’s highest leadership structures remains pervasive despite the lack of any real evidence that it exists.
The gap between myth and reality may have helped Scotland’s tourism industry. But it does nothing for the ANC, particularly at a time when it is seeking to address significant organisational and political challenges.
The description of this phenomenon has taken several routes. At its essence is the claim of a rift between ANC president Thabo Mbeki and his deputy, Jacob Zuma. This rift, the theory goes, manifests itself throughout the ANC, the alliance and across society. One daily newspaper reported this week that the ANC national executive committee (NEC) “has been split down the middle by the fallout between Mbeki and Zuma”.
The reality is that there is only one ANC, with one set of policies and programmes, and one leadership collective.
That does not mean there are not differences of views within the ANC or among its leaders. The ANC is a diverse organisation, incorporating a range of ideological perspectives, interests and classes. There are, at any given moment, a wide variety of different views on any given issue. Indeed, there are many different views within the ANC about how to analyse and respond to matters arising from the legal actions brought against the ANC deputy president. Some of these differing views may be strongly held and forcefully articulated. But that doesn’t mean the ANC is divided into camps.
On all matters before the movement, the processes of the ANC provide an opportunity for these various views to be aired, interrogated and debated as a means of arriving at a common, coherent ANC position. Some debates are more complex and difficult than others. Some take a longer time to complete.
It was at the conclusion of such a discussion that the NEC was able to state this week that it rejects “as without foundation” perceived notions of a division among the senior leaders of the organisation.
Having deliberated at length on these and other matters in November 2005, the NEC concluded that, “together with the president and deputy president, and regardless of alleged or actual perceptions to the contrary, it does not know of any such divisions”.
Is the ANC leadership deluding itself? Worse, is it seeking to mislead its members and the people of South Africa about the true nature of problems within the organisation?
In the face of daily sightings of the “great ANC rift”, splashed across newspaper headlines and heard on countless radio talk shows, it would appear to the common observer that indeed there must be some truth to these claims.
As difficult as it may be to prove the existence of mythical creatures, it is often just as difficult to provide the proof necessary to adequately dispel the myth. That is why people keep scouring the waters of Loch Ness. And that is perhaps why so many people keep returning to the notion of a major rift within the ANC as the easiest way to explain the challenges that have confronted the organisation these past few months.
The ANC is acutely aware that there are those within the ANC, or associated with the organisation, who have a hand in propagating this particular view. For reasons best known to them, and under cover of anonymity, they proclaim themselves members of one or another camp, or tell riveting tales of the intrigues of these so-called camps.
Yet strip away the column centimetres of “expert” analysis, discount for a moment the claims made by nameless and faceless “ANC insiders”, push aside whatever preconceptions one may have about either or both of the ANC’s two most senior leaders, and the murky waters of misapprehension begin to clear a little.
Asked to articulate the form and content of the rift that is said to divide the ANC, the organisation’s highest decision-making body between conferences, the NEC, was unable to do so. Neither the ANC president nor deputy president have been able to establish in what respects they differ, either politically or personally.
Ask any ANC member or leader which camp they belong to, and they are likely to look at you in puzzlement. How can an ANC member be asked to make a choice between two of its leaders, both elected by the same delegates at the same conference to serve the same organisation in pursuit of the same objectives? It is a demand that is foreign to the politics and experience of the ANC.
This may not be enough to dispel the perceptions that appear to dominate public discourse on the matter. But the views of the ANC deserve to be heard. They deserve to be understood. And they deserve to be taken seriously.
Smuts Ngonyama is the ANC head of presidency