Beemers: President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC members arrive for the lekgotla at the Birchwood. Photo: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images
Wednesday.
On the final day of the ANC’s 55th national conference in December 2022, the media contingent at the National Recreation Centre — Nasrec — was shepherded from the holding area into the main hall for a briefing with the new party leadership.
To get there, we had to pass a phalanx of sleek, black ministerial vehicles parked to the left of the walkway, where they and a group of minders awaited the return of their principals, who were seated inside.
As we did, a former colleague remarked that this might well be the last time we would see such a display of mechanised ministerial might on the part of the ANC, with a potential loss of power waiting for the party at the polls.
They predicted that there would be far fewer members of its national executive committee (NEC) in the blue-light brigade by the time its 56th conference takes place in 2027 — or by the time President Cyril Ramaphosa constituted his cabinet after the national and provincial elections on 29 May.
It turns out they were right.
There was still a solid display of four-wheel Teutonic ostentation — and distance from the voters who ultimately picked up the tab — this week in the parking lot of the Birchwood conference centre where the ANC held its first lekgotla since it lost its parliamentary majority.
The ANC remains the leader of society — their words, not mine — after all, and standards need to be maintained, electoral results be damned.
But there were far fewer four-wheel status symbols parked while the NEC met than there were at Nasrec — a vehicular representation of the cabinet positions that the ANC forfeited, along with the votes it shed when it went before 50% for the first time in May.
The missing ministers weren’t missing out, though.
The ministers and deputies who didn’t have to report at Birchwood had their lekgotla a while ago — along with the ANC cabinet contingent — and have already received their marching orders from the head of state.
Unlike their ANC counterparts, John Deere and the rest of the missing ministers don’t have to sit around listening to Ramaphosa explain how the government of national unity (GNU) will work for a second time.
While the ANC cabinet members and the rest of the NEC are getting to learn the ABCs of the GNU — and lessons on how to make use of social media — John and Lord Gayton are out there getting the job done.
Driving their comrades’ cars, eating their lunch and hogging their headlines.
Rough.
There were some embarrassing absences in the cluster briefings that were addressed by those members of the NEC who made it into cabinet as the lekgotla went about its business this week.
What else could the ANC do except fudge things when it came to education, land reform, agriculture, local government and home affairs?
Ramaphosa couldn’t exactly invite Steenhuisen, Pieter Groenewald or Velenkosini Hlabisa to brief the NEC and address the media on their ministries’ transformational plans for the next five years.
That would not be optically — or politically — permissible, especially because the ANC’s alliance partners are already crying foul over its relationship with the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus in the government of national unity.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is vibing critical, but non-oppositionist at this juncture — thank Blade Nzimande’s presence in cabinet for that — and the ANC will want to keep it that way, with a local government election and another test of its grip on political power around the corner.
Ramaphosa said as much in his closing address to the lekgotla, and issued a call for organisational renewal to rebuild the party from the branches upwards after its humiliation at the polls.
The president reminded the comrades of the need to cut back on the bling, do their jobs and keep things humble for the next five years — and to keep their fingers out of the till — if they want to be back at Birchwood this time in 2029.
Indeed.
Will Ramaphosa’s successor be telling the comrades the same thing in five years’ time, while counting the dwindling number of sleek German vehicles waiting in the parking lot?
Will the Birchwood parking be a little fuller, five years down the line, with the ANC having learned from the 2024 results and having actually undergone renewal — and redemption at the polls — when we vote in the national and provincial elections again?
Or will the ANC’s tenuous grip on power have slipped ever further by then, with the post-election lekgotla being addressed by another party’s president, while the cabinet members’ rides await them, in another parking lot?