Unity is utmost for us, say the regions.
Major protests in major cities to call for his head notwithstanding, President Jacob Zuma’s support across the country last week remained strong where it really counted: at grassroots level in the ANC.
“We are fully behind the president, we are supporting him for the reshuffle that he has made in terms of taking the line of march,” said Thapelo Dithebe, ANC chair for the Frances Baard region around Kimberley in the Northern Cape.
Time and again that message was repeated on behalf of branches and regions, with only minor variation, in both the party’s heartland and areas where it is under pressure. The Mail & Guardian spoke to regional or major branch representatives across half the roughly 50 regions into which the ANC divides the country, and dissenters were nowhere to be found.
“Did Nkandla cost us votes [in the 2016 local government elections], cost us jobs in council? Yes, it did,” said a branch leader in Gauteng, who, like all those who were even vaguely critical of Zuma, spoke on condition of anonymity. “Do I support Jacob Zuma? Yes, I do.”
That was not a contradiction, he said, but “how loyalty works”.
The ANC holds that it is a bottom-up organisation, with ultimate power vested in its branches and leaders who serve at the pleasure of members. At national elective conferences it is, in theory, branches that wield the power, albeit with administrative oversight from officials responsible for such logistics as checking the credentials of branches and determining who is in good standing.
Some local leaders would not speak for attribution because they had things to say about Zuma’s perceived enemies, but their views had not yet been formally canvassed at a provincial level.
“Especially at a level of Parliament we have individuals who have got bigger than the organisation, and there should be penalties for them, there should be disciplinary action,” said one official from Mpumalanga, who only laughed when asked if he was referring to ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu.
“There are a couple of heads we should chop off, but we will deal with that at [the ANC’s elective] conference in December,” said an official from the Midlands, who admitted he had party Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in mind.
Most regions were not keen to talk about what should happen to Zuma’s perceived opponents in the party, or about public sentiment about Zuma. Instead they chose to focus on internal cohesion.
“Unity is utmost for us,” said Sammy Claassen, spokesperson for the ANC’s West Coast region. “The best way for the ANC to move forward is as a united ANC. We don’t want these factional tendencies playing themselves out at a national level it brings confusion and division.”
Such sentiments marked a big shift from the position before the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) announced that Zuma and his fellow top party officials had made a commitment that “public dissonance” would not break out between them again. Immediately prior to that, with the ANC still divided right down the middle at the level of its top six officials, the lower-level structures of the party were either dithering or not available to speak.
“You can’t ask me what I think because the NWC hasn’t told me what I think yet,” a regional leader jokingly told the M&G. “I may think one or several of my leaders should go, but I don’t know yet.”
In September 2016 the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) was given an internal report that warned of “loud” criticism from party branches of the NEC under Zuma, with members believing their leaders were not accountable. Members were particularly critical of the party’s handling of the Nkandla scandal and allegations of state capture, according to the report.
The report also warned that “good” regional and branch leaders were being sidelined by those plugged into the Zuma patronage network, giving them the resources to buy their way into leadership positions.