The African National Congress (ANC) is intent on turning South Africa into an authoritarian state, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille warned on Friday.
”The evidence is now overwhelming: the ruling party is increasingly authoritarian, intolerant of criticism and hostile to the principles of an open society,” she said in her weekly online newsletter.
A recent series of essays on the ANC’s website had made the point that those in opposition were not only the ”enemy” of the ruling party, but of the state too.
There were also the words of Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, who — in a recent defence of floor-crossing — had said the ANC would not rest until ”every member of the South African public is an ANC member”.
Further, there was the ”brazen” way ANC headquarters had overruled a parliamentary portfolio committee’s South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board nominations ”in favour of key, hand-picked Mbeki loyalists”.
And there was the decision, announced by SABC head Dali Mpofu, to withdraw the state broadcaster from the South African National Editors Forum because of newspaper exposés that showed ”disrespect for our people”.
Zille said these strands, taken together, reveal a state of affairs described in George Orwell’s political allegory Animal Farm, in which the oppressed seized power and become the oppressor.
”Following the same trajectory as many revolutionary movements in history, the ANC’s logic is clear: it has the monopoly on morality, defined in its programme of a ‘national democratic revolution’, which is the only key to progress. This makes opposition redundant.
”All black people owe their loyalty to the ANC. Those who criticise ANC leaders have been perverted by the ‘enemy’ to betray their people. Whites can only be cleansed of the stigma of racism by joining the ANC.
”Opposition is, at best, an irritation, and at worst a betrayal of the ‘national democratic revolution’. A one-party state would enable the ANC to implement its policies unhindered.”
This is the type of logic that leads to dictatorship, Zille said.
Floor-crossing
Zille also told a City of Cape Town council meeting on Friday she hoped the recent floor-crossing window was the last the city had to endure.
She said the ”spectacle” of the past few weeks had proven again that floor-crossing legislation in its current form damaged democracy.
Zille’s DA-led multiparty government survived a bid by the African National Congress and the National People’s Party to topple it during the crossing period.
”I hope that this heralds a new period of stability and maturity in Cape Town’s politics, for the sake of our staff and for the sake of our citizens,” Zille said.
She said that if the plan to topple the city government had been successful, it would have led to a complete shift in the city’s policy direction, only 18 months after an election, and without the voters having any say whatsoever.
It would also have disrupted the hard work that had finally brought organisational structure to the administration, following ”years of chaos”. — Sapa