If you live in Cape Town or Bloemfontein or Lusikisiki, you could be forgiven for not caring much about the Gauteng provincial conference of the ANC. A battle between two veteran ANC leaders who were once close but have now fallen out, Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile, over a party rather than a government post, may seem remote indeed.
But it isn’t. The fight for the top party job in South Africa’s richest province is an echo of the warfare that tore apart the ANC in the Western Cape and another sign of the great unravelling following Jacob Zuma’s ascent to the presidency. It also turns on the competition for access to state resources that increasingly dominates our politics.
Mashatile used his time in the Gauteng provincial government to become the poster boy for crony capitalism. The list of his friends and associates who profited from the agencies he controlled as MEC for economic development is long and grubby. When he was made deputy minister of arts and culture, he lost his grip on the provincial honeypot and we don’t think he should get it back.
We have praised Mokonyane for cracking down on cronyism by merging the agencies that spent so much cash lining the pockets of the “Alex Mafia”, for cancelling the ludicrous contracts that poured hundreds of millions into motorsport and generally for insisting on cleaner governance.
But her desperate reaction to her fading leadership chances last week — the release of a long-completed investigation into some of those close to Mashatile — has made it easy for critics to dismiss her anti-corruption crusade as a vehicle for her own power.
So far none of those who wants Mokonyane out has argued that she has been a poor premier. The strong coalition against her is simply anxious that the premiership has given her too much power and she must be put in her place. Several mayors, for example, are worried that, as ANC chairperson, she might remove them from the list for the local government elections next year and replace them with her favourites.
It is hard to gauge the veracity of these claims as they relate to decisions and deals that are taken secretly, but it seems clear that the race is about political and financial patronage and that it is dragging the party into a wasteland that will be familiar to ANC members in the Cape.
Mokonyane’s premiership has already been marred by warfare between her government and the provincial ANC. It is going to get much worse as the ill-feeling between camps intensifies and feeds the broader factionalism ahead of the party’s 2012 elective conference.
The opposition will feed on the divisions but, for the most part, we will all watch from the sidelines as government jobs, contracts and places on the local government electoral lists are traded for influence. The media will be a crucial site of the struggle and journalists will have to be careful that they don’t become mouthpieces for one camp or another.
In all this the Gauteng conference is a dress rehearsal for 2012. The protagonists can fluff the lines but they must be aware that the voters increasingly see through them and the lesson from the Western Cape is that they are learning how to boo. Watch this one closely.
Pay up! Pay up! And pay the game!
So, Safa boss Lesley Sedibe has promised to find sponsors who will pay Bafana Bafana R1-million for each goal they score during next month’s World Cup.
It may be, as the talk-radio cynics quickly pointed out, the safest bet in history. But it is worse than that — it is exemplary of the mercenary attitude that has so weakened our football both on and off the pitch.
To cite only the most recent examples, before the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana some players refused to sign bonus contracts which they thought didn’t adequately recognise their genius. And last year on the eve of the Confederations Cup there was more tension over escalating pay demands.
Now Sedibe seems to be suggesting that Bafana players may develop an appetite for goals if they are promised lottery-scale payouts. Apparently a chance to play the gods of the game, on the biggest stage in the world, is not incentive enough.
The chief executive of Safa should be the last person to encourage the culture of greed in football. But, sadly, the administrators set an awful example. We applauded Kirsten Nematandani as he sought to quash plans that would give local organising committee and Safa executives 10% of the R1-billion windfall expected from Fifa after the World Cup. We hoped it signalled the end of the approach that saw PSL chairman Irvin Khoza and other role players sharing R70-million as “gratitude” for negotiating television rights and league sponsorship deals.
Perhaps if that money had been channelled towards developing top strikers, we would not be wondering where the goals will come from next month.
The pride and excitement that go with being part of the first World Cup in Africa and the opportunity to score in one of our extraordinary new stadiums should be enough motivation for any South African professional. After all, pride is enough for players from minority codes such as hockey and softball who pay their own way to international tournaments.
But never mind the moralising, the scheme is bad business, too. Imagine Bafana losing 5-2 to Mexico in the opening game — and the high-fives in the dressing room as they divvy up the bounty.