Yes, the African National Congress’s conference at Polokwane last December was a watershed ushering in a grassroots democracy. But it has also bequeathed a worrying political culture in evidence at this week’s abortive ANC Youth League conference.
Both conferences were marked by a culture of intolerance of divergent opinions — and the desire to demonise and purge rivals, graphically symbolised by the coffin for leadership candidate Saki Mofokeng paraded by Julius Malema’s supporters.
The spectacle of league members refusing to engage in political and policy discussions as long as their preferred candidate was not elected leader has deeply embarrassed older members of the league’s parent organisation.
The mind-set surfaced in Polokwane and, as one past youth leader put it, it has been amplified by the recklessness of young people.
ANC leaders and business people out to use the league for their own interests are as much to blame for the shameful shenanigans in Bloemfontein.
By trying to influence the outcome and lobbying for their favoured candidates, they have reinforced the view that the leadership of the league is available to the highest bidder and have fed into the intractable divisions and stalemate.
Money was thrown around, liquor bought and hotels booked in anticipation of future returns.
The event evidenced a new and disturbing culture that can only further erode the values of selflessness and batho pele that leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Chris Hani sought to build.
Little political education seems to be taking place in the league, as money replaces Marx and tenders are prioritised over ideas. As delegates boozed, scuffled and stripped for the camera, not a single resolution was passed.
These are the men and women who, in 10 years’ time, will lead the country. This week’s performance gives no comfort. The league has become a home for Gucci radicals who get drunk on power.
Are we creating space for debate? Will the openness created by the Polokwane conference be shut down by a new wave of Stalinism? And is it time for South Africans, including the ANC Youth League, to demand different qualities from their leaders?
Courage, sobriety, long vision and an ethic of service and sacrifice are what are required, rather than empty militant posturing and pseudo-radical bluster.
Robbed and Mugged
Don’t be fooled by the language of democracy being prostituted in our region.
The current impasse in Zimbabwe is not about flawed counting or a delayed election outcome. Neither is it about an election run-off, a photo finish or an election rerun. These are legitimate electoral terms in better democracies. None applies here.
The story of Zimbabwe this week is nothing less than that of a stolen election. The people of Zimbabwe have been cheated — in front of all our eyes.
On March 29 they went out and voted in their millions. And they voted to change a government and so to alter their lives, which have sunk from among the best in the developing world to the lowest among nations.
By a sizeable majority they voted in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and chose its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, to run a new and hopeful government.
And — 21 days later — after giving a decent period for counting and negotiating, it is fair to make the assessment that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has degenerated into a thief.
His handpicked Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has moved the recount of the votes to a secret venue closed to the scrutiny of all parties but the one that liberated the country and will now not set it free for a second Chimurenga.
This weekend — at an emergency session — members of the Southern African Development Community will probably hear a lot of mumbo-jumbo from Mugabe, who is likely to declare that colonial powers (who else?) in the United States and Britain bought off ZEC vote-counters and that both he and the independent Simba Makoni were robbed.
It is patent codswallop, the work of a gangster, the term Mugabe often unleashes to insult those who disagree with him.
If the new ways of peer review on our continent have any substance, if democracy has any future in Zimbabwe, then there must be only one message to Mugabe and to Zanu-PF from Zambia this weekend: it is time to GO! The people shall govern!