ANC gears up for policy wars

Like the African National Congress’s (ANC) national general council two years ago, the party’s national policy conference in two weeks’ time looks set to be an explosive affair.

In the run-up to the summit, to be held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand from June 27 to 30, some ANC provinces and regions are making an early bid to eliminate President Thabo Mbeki from the leadership race.

Several provinces are planning to propose the rejection of two centres of power in an attempt to dissuade Mbeki from standing for the ANC presidency. Under the Constitution, he is precluded from serving a third term as president of South Africa.

Debate over this matter is likely to pit the big regions, such as KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo — both of which reject the two-term scenario — against Western Cape, North West and the leadership of the Eastern Cape, which believe the debate is unnecessary and should therefore not preclude Mbeki from contesting the presidency.

Cosatu, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the ANC Youth League are expected to push hard for more radical economic policies to benefit the poor in an ideological war against Mbeki, his key backer Joel Netshithenzhe and the majority of Cabinet members.

Mpumalanga has set itself in even more direct opposition to Mbeki by proposing that even the ANC presidency should be limited to two terms, which he has served already. The suggestion has been rejected by Western Cape chairperson James Ngculu, who said the party had seen no need to limit the presidency in its 95-year-old history.

It is not clear whether the policy summit will be pervaded by the high emotions that marked the national general council, but sharp differences are emerging in the ANC.

The policy conference looks likely to pit provinces against one another and branches and regions against their provincial leadership. Some provincial leaders went on TV this week to deny that they had taken resolutions opposing two centres of power.

Watching the build-up with a certain grim satisfaction is ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, who has been using every platform possible to decry the abuse of power and authority (read Mbeki), two centres of power (read Mbeki) and lengthy terms in office (read Mbeki).

Zuma was the hero of the national general council in 2005 when delegates insisted that he be reinstated as ANC deputy president and blasted party leaders for failing to protect him through his tribulations after Mbeki fired him from his Cabinet.

The atmosphere has been poisoned by the public-service strike, with Mbeki and his ministers coming under heavy criticism from striking trade unionists.

Many public servants are Cosatu members and the federation has urged them to swell the ranks of the ANC to influence its ideological direction and leadership composition.

Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said this week that if the working class failed to win certain ideological positions at the policy conference ‘we must know that we are finished as the working class”.

He specifically wanted ANC members to change the government’s current economic policy and the ANC’s strategy and tactics document, both of which he said were inimical to a new development path of massive job creation and poverty eradication.

In recent weeks Cosatu and the SACP have been conducting joint ‘political schools”, where their members are taken through a critique of the ANC’s policy discussion documents in preparation for the policy conference.

The strategy and tactics document has been criticised by, among others, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and the Youth League for its failure to reinforce the role of the working class as ‘the motive force of change” and its acceptance of the ANC as a multiclass organisation.

‘There is a paradigm shift in strategy and tactics, which previous documents have not ventured [into]. It is talking about embracing a capitalist state and creates the impression that we are not concerned about a pure form of capitalism,” said KwaZulu-Natal secretary Senzo Mchunu.

‘There are two areas of emphasis, which came out of the discussion. One was the need to bring back the organisation [into the discourse]. Strategy and tactics emphasises the role of government, making as if the role of the ANC is miniscule,” Mchunu said.

The other point of emphasis, he said, was a renewed focus on the poor and marginalised. This required ANC consultation with Cosatu and the SACP.

Highlighting the marginalisation Cosatu and the SACP have experienced in the tripartite alliance, the composite resolutions call for greater input from trade unionists and communists in formulating economic and labour policies, and for the relevance of the alliance to be reaffirmed.

Mchunu said KwaZulu-Natal had also had called for the strengthening of the office of ANC secretary general. ‘All day-to-day functions must be based in the office of the secretary general and so should the spokesperson of the ANC. This will avoid situations where the spokesperson releases a statement only to be later corrected by the [secretary general],” states the resolution.

It intimates that the role of ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama, who is based in the office of the party president, is problematic and that the ANC is being run from the Union Buildings rather than the party’s Luthuli House headquarters.

Western Cape chairperson James Ngculu said his province has accepted that the spokesperson should be based in the office of the secretary general.

However, the issue likely to be the biggest sticking point is the proposal first made by the ANC Youth League in 2004 that there should not be two centres of power — meaning that whoever is elected ANC president should automatically be the ANC’s candidate for president of the country.

Ngculu insisted that while they had discussed the ‘relationship between government and the ANC” at the provincial policy conference, they had resolved that there ‘was only one centre of power” and that resided in the ANC. ‘Two centres” was, therefore, a misnomer.

He said the Western Cape policy conference had largely endorsed the policy discussion documents. Delegates had, however, rejected the suggestion that the national executive council should be increased from its current 60 members to enable broader representation of the ANC’s alliance partners and more women.

Supra Mahumapelo, North West ANC secretary, echoed Ngculu, arguing that delegates at the provincial policy conference, had resolved that the ANC constitution should not be changed to introduce a two-year limitation on the party’s presidency simply to ‘suit a certain situation” — in this case, to stop Mbeki’s re-election as ANC president.

‘If it was resolved that the ANC president automatically becomes state president, then it should equally be resolved that the ANC chairpersons should become premiers and the ANC regional secretaries should become mayors,” Mahumapelo said.

‘People also have short memories. Thabo Mbeki served as ANC president while Nelson Mandela was finishing his term as state president.”

An Eastern Cape leader said the province’s policy conference had rejected the two centres of power option, not because of personalities, but to avoid the ‘disastrous situation of a weak state president who would take his/her cue from the ANC president”.

Some provincial leaders would not discuss which resolutions they are taking to the national conference. But those sympathetic to a rejection of two centres of power believe they will have the support of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Northern Cape and some regions of the Eastern Cape.