Forget Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma’s battle over the presidency. The ANC’s December national congress will be dominated by a struggle over the party’s national executive committee (NEC) — its highest decision-Âmaking body between conferences.
The NEC will undergo its most extensive leadership overhaul since 1994 at this congress. But the dominant faction in the ANC and its left-wing allies, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party, are deeply divided over what form it should take.
The ANC wants to introduce a quota system to ensure greater representation of Cosatu and the SACP, but also of women, state officials, youth, and the ANC at provincial and regional levels.
But Cosatu has rejected the quota system idea as ‘patronisingâ€, saying that the NEC must be transformed through a ‘dynamic revolutionâ€, which it will lead at the December conference.
Meeting four or five times a year, the NEC ‘assumes the overall responsibility of providing political leadership to the movement and to the people as a wholeâ€, according to the ANC.
Both the ruling party and Cosatu have become increasingly concerned that the executive no longer represents the party’s core constituency — working people — and has become overloaded with business leaders and Cabinet ministers with no constituency.
The ANC’s plan is contained in a discussion document, Proposals on Organisational Renewal: Towards 2012, which says: ‘The size and composition of the NEC needs to be reviewed with the following objectives in mind: a possibility of increasing the size of the NEC to ensure that there are more members to meet the demands arising from provincial and sectoral deployments — ensure an appropriate gender balance and generational mix — [and] ensure that the NEC represents a broad spectrum of the motive forces, and has members from different centres of power.â€
The proposal is now being debated at the branch level. Another ANC document last year proposed increasing the NEC from its current upper limit of 93 members, provided for in the ANC constitution, to 120. Of these, 80 would be directly elected through a list system, with six Luthuli House officials. It also proposed 50/50 gender representation; provision for 10 co-opted members to ‘allow for regional, demographic, class, governmental deployment and other balancesâ€; and four positions reserved for Cosatu nominees.
The ANC wants to finalise the quota system at its policy conference in June for implementation in December.
But Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of Cosatu, poured scorn on the idea this week. ‘I don’t like quotas,†he said. ‘Anyone who goes through that system will be undermined and rely too much on patronage.â€
For the first time, Cosatu will table a list of names for nomination to the NEC as part of its strategy to ‘flood the ranks of the ANC†and influence its ideological direction. At the ANC’s 2002 conference in Stellenbosch, the federation opted not to stand for the NEC to maintain its independence, believing it could influence the party from outside. That strategy has failed.
A measure of Cosatu’s continuing lack of influence is the fact that Vavi and Mbeki have never met face to face, despite Vavi’s efforts. ‘We want to ensure that this [ANC] platitude, about the Âworking class driving the transformation, becomes a living reality,†said Vavi. He revealed that Cosatu met this week to discuss ‘the kind of leader†it wants elected to the NEC, and that it would ‘put faces to these characteristics†later in the year.
‘We need people in the NEC who are ideologically in tune with the poor [and] in touch with the daily lives of the working class, rather than having it loaded with people leading bourgeois lifestyles,†he said.
Last year, NEC members Joel Netshitenzhe and Enoch Godongwana, and Mandla Nkomfe, Gauteng legislature chief whip, wrote that ‘it would be a travesty of its own express orientation if the ANC’s national leadership does not include working class cadres — the NEC has evolved to consist of only the middle strata and business, a consequence of political incumbency and opening of opportunities in the private sector.â€
Since 2002, at least seven NEC members have left active politics for the private sector, increasing the NEC’s ‘business complement†to nearly 20%. The organised left has three representatives, or 5% of total: SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin and SACP treasurer Phillip Dexter.
The NEC members actively in business are Max Sisulu, Cyril Ramaphosa, Saki Macozoma, Penuell Maduna, Popo Molefe, Valli Moosa, Mathews Phosa, Ngoako Ramathlodi and Tony Yengeni.
While NEC members sit as party representatives and not on behalf of different interest groups, the executive is supposed to reflect the full ‘broad church†of the ANC and its diverse traditions.
An NEC member said there was also concern that the NEC is top-heavy with Cabinet ministers and provincial premiers who owe allegiance to Mbeki. Of the 58 members, 26 (49%) sit in Cabinet. Only eight (14%) are drawn from the ANC’s provincial leadership, and one from local government.
NEC members complain that, as a result, the NEC reflects the attitudes of ANC in government and not as a political party. In addition, the NEC’s membership has remained relatively unchanged since 1994, with 53% of those elected in 1994, and 75% of those elected in Mafikeng in 1997, still serving.
‘We know that [Cosatu involving itself in the ANC leadership nomination process] will be controversial, from the viewpoint of blurring the independence between the alliance partners. We’ve raised the issue with the ANC leadership,†said Vavi. ‘But it’s time workers became a dominant factor in ANC structures.â€
In?
These are the left leaders likely to be nominated to the ANC NEC:
Out?
Individuals such as the following may be targets of leftist delegates:
- Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence: seen as an Mbeki sell-out and key abuser of state security apparatus against Zuma.
- Popo Molefe, businessman and former North West premier: instant empowerment billionaire who quit politics for business.
- Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Minister of Public Service and Administration: former communist resented as hardliner in state-sector pay talks.
- Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, Minister of Communications: seen as Mbeki minion and dead wood.
- Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency: Mbeki’s chief loyalist. Former SACP leader, seen as sidelining the ANC’s left allies.
- Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Minister of Health: seen as dead wood and anti-poor.