A document presented to President Thabo Mbeki by the Eastern Cape provincial executive committee (PEC) has painted a grim picture of leadership paralysis, political infighting and rebellion in the ranks of the African National Congress that could thwart the crucial provincial conference later this month.
”The ANC has never experienced such high levels of ill-discipline, defiance [and] infighting within members of the ANC,” the document says. ”The local government elections [this year] were the most difficult and challenging elections ever faced by the movement [in the Eastern Cape] since we took power in 1994.”
The document, Overview of the State of the Organisation, was prepared for the provincial general council meeting held in Port Elizabeth at the end of July.
It was presented to Mbeki when he met provincial leaders at a two-day meeting on August 20 and 21.
Mbeki plans to visit all nine provinces before the end of the year to meet party bosses and gauge the state of the ANC and progress in fulfilling the party’s election promises.
A senior party official told the Mail & Guardian that the two-day meeting was dominated by discussions about the damaging impact of the Jacob Zuma saga and the succession battle in the party.
The M&G understands that the PEC is keen to adopt a resolution that, for the sake of ANC unity, neither Mbeki nor Zuma should consider running for the party presidency at the ANC’s national conference in December next year.
However, a shock resolution adopted by the Nelson Mandela (Port Elizabeth) region this week, that it would support a third presidential term for Mbeki, has forced the province to reconsider.
Vuyo Toto, Nelson Mandela region secretary, said: ”We believe the president has led the ANC very well and still has an energy that can benefit the party.” His region had started a debate on the matter and would engage other regions in the Eastern Cape and elsewhere.
A senior PEC member said provincial leaders opposed the Nelson Mandela resolution because the movement was already gripped by ”over-personification”.
A party official who attended the Mbeki meeting said the provincial leaders had told the president that it felt the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) had failed to provide leadership on the Zuma saga.
”It’s an NEC tradition to brief and get a mandate from ANC branches on issues that could damage the ANC’s image,” he said. ”Unfortunately, the NEC did not do this, leading to uncertainty among some branches and divisions among members,” the official said.
Some NEC members have also expressed concern that the NEC is more responsive to the party’s top brass than to its mass base.
The PEC expressed concern to Mbeki that two centres of power had emerged in the province after the 2004 national election.
Mbeki’s appointment of Premier Nosimo Balindlela had opened up divisions between the ANC and the government in the Eastern Cape. Leftists in the province believe she is ”remote-controlled by Luthuli House”.
When Balindlela unilaterally sacked former finance minister Enoch Godongwana and replaced him with Billy Nel, some ANC members felt snubbed because the decision had not been communicated in the customary way to the party hierarchy.
ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and the ANC Eastern Cape chairperson and national Sports Minister, Makhenkesi Stofile, travelled to the province to try to quell the discontent.
The document presented to Mbeki makes it clear that these problems persist. ”We are not managing to balance the work of the movement on the one hand and government on the other, despite the intervention of the secretary general in 2004,” it says.
Meanwhile, Zuma was in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday to visit former Umkhonto weSizwe commander James Kati (82) at St Mary’s private hospital in Umtata. Kati reported to Zuma during the ANC’s underground operations.
Zuma also met the regional leadership of the OR Tambo ANC region. Siyakholwa Mlamli, OR Tambo’s regional secretary, said Zuma had briefed them on issues facing the ANC nationally, including his corruption trial.
”Like us, he expressed his concerns about efforts to further postpone the trial,” Mlamli said.