The ANC succession battle being fought in the trenches of KwaZulu-Natal continues to reveal a party that is at odds with itself: where cadre recruitment at branch level is being used to add impetus to campaigns for the presidency and allegations are emerging that policy workshops are being sabotaged to push forward a pro-Jacob Zuma agenda.
The latter was revealed in a letter co-written by Siyanda Mhlongo, the ANC policy coordinator in KwaZulu-Natal, and branch member Phillip Mhlongo to the ANC’s national working committee requesting their intervention in a provincial disciplinary hearing they are facing. They face charges of fomenting factionalism, among others. The two blew the whistle on efforts to make the province a no-go zone for President Thabo Mbeki.
According to the letter, both believe the hearing is the ‘culmination†of a systematic attempt to discredit and ‘purge†them from the ANC by KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson Senzo Mchunu, seen as one of Zuma’s main backers in the province.
This week both Mhlongos raised formal objections to, and recused themselves from, the disciplinary hearing: ‘We will let the disciplinary committee pronounce on the issue and then make an appeal to the national disciplinary committee,†said Phillip Mhlongo, who felt the outcome at provincial level was a forgone, jaundiced conclusion.
The Mail & Guardian has a copy of the letter which, among other things, voices concerns about the political hijacking of workshops to discuss ANC policy documents.
The letter alleges that policy discussion documents such as Revolutionary Morality: The ANC and Business and Through the Eye of the Needle, which interrogates issues of morality in ANC leadership, ‘are distorted and personalised. In KwaDukuza organisers presented them as [Joel] Netshitenze-written documentsâ€, implying that they were propaganda documents from a pro-Mbeki camp out to discredit Zuma, rather than official ANC discussion documents.
‘Some documents are dismissed outright and the platform is then being used to attack President Mbeki as undemocratic. There is no discussion,†said one regional executive committee member, who spoke to the M&G on condition of anonymity.
Interviews conducted by the M&G in the Kwa-Dukuza region reflect an intensification of recruitment drives and factional lobbying within the party at branch level among delegates who will vote in Limpopo later this year.
‘Obviously there has been recruitment going on by both pro-Jacob Zuma and pro-Mbeki people who are saying let us fill the branch membership, but what is worrying is that there is no cadre development to go with it,†said another regional executive committee member, who wanted to remain anonymous.
‘It’s a disgrace. I have participated in a workshop where there were about 30 people and only about five were participating because they knew about ANC culture and tradition. The rest were just waiting for lunch,†he added.
Another committee member, who said he was ‘pro-ANC†rather than belonging to any faction, put a more odious spin on the drive to increase membership, especially an unpoliticised one: ‘Zuma’s people have built their campaign on ethnicity, vulgar Marxism and populism, it will suit them to have people who are blank, and to leave them blank, especially when they have to cast their votes.â€
KwaDukuza regional chairperson, Ben Nzuza, refuted such claims: ‘There is only one membership, that of the ANC, not pro-Mbeki, or pro-Zuma. Cadre development is on-going, it is the bread and butter of the ANC,†he said.
The Mhlongos believe they have been cast as anti-Zuma, and have subsequently been victimised because of their vocal calls for open discussion about the organisation’s succession debate.