Even if Thabo Mbeki wins the African National Congress (ANC) leadership at Polokwane — and this looks increasingly unlikely given the outcome of the provincial general councils last weekend — he will face a totally new power configuration after December 21.
The ANC’s national executive committee, Mbeki’s compliant instrument for at least the past five years, is certain to contain far fewer Cabinet ministers and other clients and many more supporters of Jacob Zuma and the left.
Given the backlash from the ANC’s rank and file, it will no longer be possible for him to govern with blithe disregard for his party and its policies. The power he has increasingly concentrated in his office — for example, to appoint provincial premiers — is certain to be diluted.
After Polokwane Mbeki will be a lame duck president of the country in more ways than one: he is on the way out and he will have lost control of the party machine. The imperial presidency he tried to introduce, against the grain of South Africa’s political culture, is over.
Given Mbeki’s missteps and policy blunders on such issues as HIV/Aids and the arms deal, the deconcentration of presidential power is devoutly wished for. Like Parliament, the ANC’s collective leadership should act as a brake on the executive — under Mbeki it has failed to play this role.
But the new situation is also fraught with dangers. With 16 months to go to the next national election, the country risks an unprecedented period of instability as Mbeki and his opponents in the ANC leadership wrestle over the direction of government.
The “two centres of power” nightmare is already quite familiar to residents of the Western Cape and the Free State, where protracted infighting between the party and government has bred political paralysis and caused the fall of a premier.
In the Free State the ANC provincial executive committee tried to dictate Cabinet appointments to Mosiuoa Lekota — and that level of party micro-management of government is obviously unworkable.
The administration will grind to a halt if, as Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa puts it, Mbeki is forced to run to Luthuli House on every decision. On the other hand, much closer coordination between the executive and the ruling party will be essential if a damaging tug of war is to be averted.
The left has proposed a negotiated protocol to regulate relations between the government and the ANC — and this seems the only way to go.
Mbeki must recognise that he can no longer fly solo and Zuma that he dare not undermine the government he eventually hopes to lead. Much will depend on the readiness of both sides to give and take — and to subordinate their own egos to the national interest.
A pipe of patriarchy
What were they smoking? The ANC Women’s League, that is. The organisation that helped secure some of the world’s most progressive gender policies for South African women missed an opportunity to nominate a woman as president of the ANC.
We should not be surprised. The league has betrayed its founding principles for most of the democratic era. It’s a slumbering, ja-baas formation with no strategy or tactics. We should not be surprised that it’s now flicked its kanga at the new guy, presidential nominee Jacob Zuma.
During Zuma’s rape trial two years ago, the league awoke — rather late in the day — to complain about the patriarchy and misogyny on display inside and outside the courtroom.
Then it dozed off again and suffered, it seems, a bout of amnesia. Some argue that the league was in fact being both wily and democratic.
Why should it elect women when the point is to choose the best candidate? And why does wider society dictate to the league about whom it should choose? Why is the Youth League not being similarly lambasted for not choosing a young presidential candidate? Would it not have been a vote wasted once it had seen the writing on the wall as Zuma notched up victory after victory at the weekend?
This is the same argument being advanced by the league’s secretary general, Bathabile Dlamini, who objects to criticism of what is, in effect, a democratic decision.
But these arguments are ahistorical, not looking at the founding principles or the history of the Women’s League. Its raison d’être has always been to advance women in the ANC and it missed an opportunity to score a principled goal by putting forward a woman as presidential candidate or even as a deputy president.
There is a risk that one of the most progressive policy proposals before the ANC conference will now come asunder. This is the proposal to bring equality in representation to the ruling party by enshrining the 50-50 principle whereby the party’s lists should reflect equal numbers of mooted male and female candidates.
If the league does not drive this policy, it will falter on the altar of ego and ambition. What were they smoking? The pipe of patronage, position and careerism, no doubt.