As the rain fell and temperatures plummeted unseasonably, our world shifted. In a stunning defeat delegates decisively rejected ANC president Thabo Mbeki’s bid for a third term as ANC leader.
From day one, delegates sang and rolled their arms in the football signal indicating their desire for change; they watched the overhead screens and made their preferences felt as the cameras focused on different leaders.
Presidential strongman Essop Pahad: “Booh!” NEC member Kader Asmal: “Booh!” Communist leader Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin: “Yaaay!” Mathews Phosa (later to become the party’s treasurer-general): “Yaaay!”
The Eastern Cape and his Cabinet staged a final, abortive assault in Mbeki’s cause. Marching in the rain, his supporters held up three fingers, symbolising a third term.
They sat dejectedly as the final results of the “top six” election were announced on Tuesday night; their adversaries taunted them by holding up three fingers and taking them down one by one. Then they held up six fingers and made a zero — the margin of their victory: Zuma 6: Mbeki 0.
Significantly, delegates did not sing Umshini Wami that night — they chanted “ANC! ANC! ANC!” The party had been reclaimed.
Crowds gathered, some wrapped in kangas featuring Zuma, mostly joyous.
What does it mean?
With snooty opprobrium, some pundits see the conference as the descent of the rabble on the ANC. The barbarians have broken down the gates, disrupting the party’s culture and tradition. For them it is a time to be “very afraid”.
This is pure hype. What happened this week was a rebellion — but since when has submission to established leaders been the culture of the ANC?
Talking to delegates helped dispel the notion of a mindless rabble that served as Zuma’s voting fodder. The defeat of established leaders was the product of well-organised strategy that was noisy but disciplined.
“Dlamini-Zuma, respek us!” said one roughly worded pamphlet. The demand for leaders to respect the ANC rank and file came through repeatedly.
Of course, there were groupies and opportunists among the pro-Zuma delegates. One woman looked thoroughly bored during the tough political discussions and came to life only at singing and booing time.
But on the whole the conference was a remarkable exercise in democracy. Ordinary ANC members decided they were tired of Mbeki’s imperial and often Machiavellian rule, no matter what he might have delivered. The leader as manager, auditor and backroom manipulator went out the window.
Mbeki’s valedictory speech catalogued, over two hours, his record in office. Speaking more to posterity than to the delegates, he sounded like a man who knew he had lost.
“If we are divided, what divides us?” asked Mbeki. “You! It’s you!” retorted delegates. And he was a divisive leader, who pitted the centre against the left; exile against inzile; black against white. He set up premiers against their provinces, firing or holding at bay those he dislikes and doggedly sticking to laggards. Striving for connection, he invited delegates to “ask the president any and all questions you may want to pose”. To which a woman from KwaZulu-Natal responded: “Hau, late, ubaba!”
A brave new world
As an antidote to the incumbent, Zuma projected himself as a man of the people, a simple man from Nkandla. Yet this masks a masterful campaign that collected around him a disparate group of leftists, youth, provincial power brokers and key sections of the intelligence and security services. He marshalled resources to run a national and international campaign.
His supporters promise a brave new world, where a change in style will see a leader and a party connected with the masses. During his first speech, he projected the image of unifier with a new style. He announced, for example, a resuscitation of street committees. He assured his audience that he and President Thabo Mbeki would “develop smooth working relations between the government and the ruling party” and said that domestic and international business should not be afraid.
But Zuma’s diffuse coalition expects payback. ANC Youth League leader Fikile Mbalula reminded us this week that the league brought Mbeki to power and now stripped him of it.
The league and the left, which already won the concession of a Tripartite Alliance Summit early next year, are likely to push for an alliance-led government in place of Mbeki’s government-led alliance.
This is unlikely to lead to major economic policy upheavals. What is worrying, however, is the triumphalism in the air — a triumphalism which Zuma tried to dispel by pointing to the need to build unity. There was only one ANC, he said.
Unity will require a national executive committee balanced between different interest groups. If not, Polokwane can produce only an inversion of the warring factions. A lot must change in South Africa — it must have a committed assault on inequality and a new style of rule. But there is also much from the Mbeki era to build on and many good people whose skills should be retained.
Most importantly, there is the Constitution, which binds us all. One of the ANC’s first moves after electing Zuma was to resolve to disband the Scorpions. Will the new ANC leader stand trial if he is charged? All the indications are that his most mindless supporters will try to block this — a grave error which would undermine his presidential prospects. He has consistently demanded his day in court and he should have it.
The lesson of Polokwane is that democracy does not depend on individuals. But neither should it depend on the ANC.
Every South African should strive to strengthen democratic practice in his or her sphere of influence, whether trade unions, community policing forums, political parties or other forms of organised citizenship.
We should neither dread the future, nor imagine the Messiah has come. Zumania cannot overwhelm our constitutional democracy. And by encouraging democratic participation it could just strengthen it.