”The theme for tonight is betrayal,” Ebrahim Rasool told about 800 family, staff and supporters gathered for a surprise birthday party in the Cape Flats suburb of Crawford on Wednesday night.
There was a murmur around the hall — many of the gathered ANC branch officials, provincial government staffers and business people wanted the beleaguered Western Cape premier to hit out more strongly at the decision of the ruling party’s national executive to sack him. And he seemed about to start.
Then the other shoe dropped. He was going to put on a good show of being surprised and keep the anger cloaked in an attitude of principled resolve — and humour.
Joking about the elaborate preparations for the surprise party, which involved both family and provincial officials, he said: ”I came to Hewatt College tonight to do official duties at an awards ceremony. It is betrayal when your wife conspires against you. It is betrayal when your staff cabinet conspires against you, when honourable religious leaders conspire against you and when comrades conspire against you.”
Hewatt College, now known as Cape Town College, was the site of numerous running battles between United Democratic Front protesters and police during the 1980s, a history Rasool and those around him regard as crucial to their political identity. When he walked into the hall and saw the gathering he said he had to rush to the toilet because his stomach churned with anxiety.
”My greatest fear was not the call from the national chairperson [Baleka Mbete, informing him of his impending removal as premier] but that I would cry during the national anthem. There was no choir, just us, like we did before.”
But what followed was the closest thing to a call to battle Rasool has yet uttered — and a signal to his core supporters that the contest ahead of the party’s provincial conference, which is likely to take place on August 15, will be intense.
Watching were four of the provincial ministers most likely to lose their jobs when Rasool goes: economic affairs and environment minister Tasneem Essop, community safety minister Leonard Ramatlakane, education minister Cameron Dugmore and transport and public works minister Marius Fransman.
Also looking on were Muslim Judicial Council chair Sheik Ebrahim Gabriels and University of the Western Cape vice-chancellor Brian O’Connell, both of whom made speeches decrying Rasool’s ousting, as well as veteran activist Reg September, Judge Siraj Desai and business people such as Brimstone’s Yousuf Pahad and Futuregrowth’s Anwah Nagia.
”We have to succeed,” Rasool said. ”There is no place for little hearts, no place to lick your wounds, no place to be angry with an ANC that has honoured me more than I could have imagined.”
Then he set out what is likely to be one of the thrusts of the campaign that he and ANC provincial chair James Ngculu will wage in the coming weeks: that it was unjust to sack him, while effectively handing his rivals, grouped around provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha, the keys to the provincial government.
”I can’t question the decision made by the NEC, but I can ask questions about it. It is easy to walk away from a position, but it is not easy to walk away from honour.
”Let us discuss this matter. I wouldn’t want my leaving to create greater wounds, but is only one party guilty? And how do we share the guilt to make the ANC whole again because I wouldn’t want to see Helen Zille in [the premier’s official residence] Leeuwenhof soon.”
In a sharper dig at his opponents he said: ”The ANC is bigger than a few problematic leaders, a few questionable decisions.”
Citing Bertold Brecht’s classic play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, he suggested it was the provincial ANC leadership that was tearing the party apart and that his loyalty to the movement would prevent him from doing the same. The play deals with a battle between two women who both claim maternity of a child. The Solomonic magistrate overseeing the case suggests they put the baby inside a chalk circle and each woman take one arm in a tug-of-war. The true mother refuses, saying she would rather give up the child than hurt it.
”We’ve got to fight for the ideals of soft power,” Rasool said. ”The warlords know only hard power; you’ve got to show them what soft power can bring — You’ve got to make tactical retreats to make bigger advances and in the way we deal with this matter we will show a morality to guide us forward.”
Those remarks will anger Skwatsha’s backers, who argue that Rasool must bear primary responsibility for the divisions — ”he must explain what Skwatsha has done wrong”, said one — but these allegations of unfairness will be crucial to negotiations with the ANC’s top officials about how the process leading up to the conference is handled.
In a clear allusion to the election of the new provincial leadership Rasool said: ”We have a task, which is to ensure that the democratic processes are honoured.”
There is clearly no expectation, however, that the decision of the NEC will be reversed. ”I don’t know who paid for this,” Rasool joked with provincial officials who have been anxiously scrutinising the fine print on their contracts in the past week, ”but I would advise you to save your money — you don’t know what your next salary will be.”