It was never going to be an easy assignment.
To begin with, Durban is hot and humid. So trekking to the media tent at the ANC national general council via a detour – designed to ensure hacks like me don’t talk to delegates like them — left us all panting and sweaty and generally unpleasant on arrival.
Besides, it was clear that most people would have preferred it if we weren’t there at all. Up to now, the debate about the proposed media appeals tribunal played out in air-conditioned halls, with open, if raucous, debate between ANC leaders and journalists. But here, the distaste for the media hung thick, much like the moisture that stuck to our backsides.
Delegates would turn away if they caught a glimpse of the blue tag that hung like albatrosses from our necks, showing branch leaders exactly who to avoid. Apart from barring the media from closed sessions, journalists weren’t even allowed to hang around outside the halls and tents where commissions took place.
The chaotic accreditation process should have given us an indication of how the week would go. After submitting our information several times, more than 400 local and international journalists were crammed into a stuffy room in the City Hall, told to make two queues and stand and wait. We signed our names into a single register and had our photographs taken by a single camera, and our tags were printed by a single printer. The process took about four hours for me, but longer for others whose frustration grew as deadlines were missed.
When my accreditation tag fell off my lanyard the next day because of the cheap-quality paper used, it was back to the stuffy room again. This time there were fewer people, but more attitude.”The media must wait until we finish everyone else,” the Gauteng delegate who doubled as a gatekeeper announced. And when he felt, two hours later, that I had waited long enough, my tag was reprinted and ready in less than three minutes.
This spite filtered through the conference, which, instead of being held at the user-friendly Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), was in its ugly twin next door: the Durban Exhibition Centre, with its smelly carpets and impractical layout that took us through three doors just to get to the next hall.
One afternoon I asked to use a bathroom in one of the buildings, instead of having to use the portable toilet outside. A police officer stopped me and when I explained where I was going, he glared at my lanyard: “I don’t trust you,” he said.
Still, by the end of the first day, it was clear this was not Polokwane II.
For one, the delegates were not as diverse. In spite of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema’s promise that the majority of candidates would come from youth structures, most of the delegates were ordinary, middle-class people with families to feed. The youth league had only 65 delegates at the conference, a small fraction of the 2 200 total.
The wealth gap was also much less conspicuous than at Polokwane, where comrades used the muddy Turfloop campus grounds to show off their shiny new 4x4s. Here, the silver E-class Mercedes squeezed in the same parking lot as the Corollas and the majority of delegates left their designer gear at home, opting instead for collared ANC golf shirts or Madiba-style linens to combat the climate.
Conference for grown-ups
Unlike Polokwane, no secret caucuses were huddled under trees. Delegates in Durban attended commissions diligently, without constantly being chased back into the halls like errant school children.
It was a conference for grown-ups. None of the disruptive behaviour that the ANCYL had become known for found a place here. Although some delegates told us that the commission on nationalisation had become rowdy on Wednesday night, in the plenary session, booing and heckling was not tolerated.
For the first time President Jacob Zuma, who lost significant chunks of support in the youth league, was not a rock star whose very presence made grown women scream like teenagers on heat. Instead, he was a leader in his opening address on Monday, taking on those who had recently overplayed their hand.
First in the firing line was Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi for insulting the ANC when he accused some ministers of corruption. Then he went straight for Malema: “Juniors,” he told the crowd to applause, “must respect seniors.” Malema’s face after the speech showed that even he could do the political maths; his political mother, the ever-stylish Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in a blue business suit, was the only ANC leader to rub his back in comfort.
Meanwhile, at the “network lounge” next to the exhibition centre, the ANC’s money-spinning project on the sidelines of the conference upped its game. Whereas in Polokwane the lounge sported stalls from mostly unknown small companies desperate for business, this time the big names came out in big numbers. But there was not a single delegate to be found.
Absa chairperson Maria Ramos was personally manning her stand when Zuma visited the lounge on Wednesday. But she struggled for an answer when asked why one of the country’s largest banks needed to pay R75 000 for a cramped space at an exhibition like this.
“Everyone else is doing it,” she said, shrugging as she pointed at the other stalls occupied by Neotel, Thebe Investments and MultiChoice. Eventually her colleague piped up: “We have the best coffee here,” he said, while proudly gesturing towards the Nescafé machine in the corner.
MultiChoice chief executive Imtiaz Patel was a bit more direct: “It is important to show government what we do; they are our customers, clients and regulators.”
But Vodacom staffer Sikilele Zulu spoke the gospel truth: “It is a way of giving to the party to fund the conference.”
Big players like Emirates, Sahara Computers and Basil Read also had stalls. But they weren’t banking on a massive influx of new business from these delegates either. In fact, De Beers didn’t even bother to show up for its reserved spot.
Subtle business
Of course, getting the ANC to notice your company is a subtle business. At the gala dinner on the eve of the conference, for which some business leaders paid up to R500 000 for a table, delegates were unhappy about a few of the white business people who obviously did not know the rules of the game.
“They started talking about tenders right there at the table. You don’t do that, you make an appointment for next week,” one cringing Jo’burg businessman complained.
The man of the conference turned out to be the Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula, who was asked directly about his political ambitions. He replied that he was merely waiting in the wings, like a disciplined comrade. “I will pronounce when the time is right,” he told reporters, while his broad smile signalled to everyone what his answer would be.
On most issues a vague outcome and commitment to “investigate” rather than “implement” was the middle ground. But the ANC and its alliance did manage to pull itself together with a full show of maturity. During the time of the conference, at least, discipline ruled and the seniors seemed to have taken back control. Even the mood towards the media began to thaw towards the end of the week, maybe because the commission watered down the initial draconian media tribunal to exclude options such as jail time.
As a Cabinet minister and high-ranking ANC leader explained: “This is a jamboree, a party, just a way for the ANC to get itself together. It’s actually a waste of money. But don’t quote me on that. I shouldn’t be saying these things in public.”