ANALYSIS
ANC’s centre no longer holds – Balkanisation appears inevitable
There’s increasing evidence that central political authority in the governing party is weakening across constituencies – a fire that will be difficult to put out – and certain small events reveal this process in shocking relief.
Gauteng lost its Health MEC Bandile Masuku more than two months ago. He was accused of not providing oversight for a series of PPE tenders that nearly went to a family friend, Thandisizwe Diko, who is the husband of the currently “on long leave” presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko.
Then the Gauteng ANC, which appeared nearly evenly split on the issue, instructed Premier David Makhura to appoint a new MEC. Makhura gave the impression of preferring to keep Masuku in stasis until proper investigations were completed, but he had no choice but to continue the search for a new MEC.
Eventually, he decided on Nomathemba Mokgethi. However, as part of a provincial Cabinet reshuffle he also wants to appoint deputy Cogta minister and former Joburg mayor Parks Tau as the MEC for Economic Development. To do that, Tau needs to be a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
To make way for Tau, a member, Thulani Ndlovu, was asked to resign his seat. He refused.
On Wednesday morning it emerged that the Gauteng ANC Youth League had publicly objected to Ndlovu being told he would have to resign.
There are many issues at play here.
The Gauteng ANC Youth League says it does not believe a younger person should have to give up their position for an older person, no matter how important it is for Gauteng to have a full complement of MECs.
This is astonishing.
This group is happy to hold up this process, during a pandemic, simply because it will negatively affect one of their own. It is unthinkable that an ANC deployee could have behaved this way 10 years ago. It would simply not have been done – a person would have been told exactly how they were nothing compared with the party, how cold it is outside the ANC and why they had a duty to do what was being asked of them. They would also have been told that their future could well be determined by their current actions and would have been promised some kind of high office.
None of that seems to apply any more.
Of course, this is not the first time that an ANC deployee has ignored the party. It has happened many times in different ways.
The first major public example was perhaps in Tlokwe (Potchefstroom), in 2012.
Then, ANC councillors rebelled against their ANC mayor and abstained from voting, allowing the DA to win a no-confidence motion. It happened again in Tlokwe in 2013. In the end, each ANC councillor won an all-expenses-paid trip to a local hotel where they had an individual meeting with then-president Jacob Zuma and then secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.
It has happened in other places too, with ANC councillors voting against party orders. It happened in the Emfuleni Local Municipality last month, it happened in Nkangala in Mpumalanga last year and it happened in the Sol Plaatje Municipality around Kimberley before that.
However, what may have changed is that there is now no fear of Luthuli House taking any action against someone who refuses to obey a party instruction. In the case of Ndlovu in the Gauteng Legislature, he knows that nothing will happen to him, and that his constituency, the ANC Youth League, will protect him.
This issue around constituencies is key.
As Ndlovu knows he cannot be touched, so Ekurhuleni Mayor Mzwandile Masina is able to tweet against ANC policy and in support of the EFF’s. This is now happening across the board. Leaders who are elected in charge of structures are able to defy Luthuli House in a way that is impossible for ordinary rank-and-file members.
It was this dynamic that allowed the ANC Women’s League in North West to tell its members who are mayors to defy the ANC instruction to “step aside” when they were accused of corruption.
The struggle to save the ANC from itself continues – with no visible results
However, that does not mean that individual members do not get away with it when they try it.
The ANC’s former Nelson Mandela Bay councillor, Andile Lungisa, has openly defied instructions from the party, after the National Executive Committee (NEC) ordered him to resign and he refused. In the end, officials took no action until he started his jail term.
And it is probably because of this paralysis that the Gauteng ANC Youth League was able to act in the way that it has. It has seen the failure of Luthuli House to act in other cases and knows it has nothing to fear here.
Unfortunately, this situation is likely to get worse for the ANC.
This weekend the NEC is due to debate whether Ace Magashule should “step aside” as secretary-general. He has said he will not do so voluntarily and will no doubt fight any attempt to remove him.
An entirely possible outcome of this weekend’s meeting is that he remains in office or that there is a delay in his “stepping aside”. This will weaken the legitimacy of both him and his office. As a result, the ANC will find it even harder to enforce its will, and the chances of some structures – regions, provincial youth leagues or even provinces – being in outright rebellion will grow.
This fire will be difficult to put out. The only way it can be done would be for a strong united leadership in the ANC, which could take and enforce action.
This comes back to the NEC, which would have to back any decision to suspend and remove people who defy the party. This NEC, elected at Nasrec in 2017, appears unable to do that.
Which means that this process of Balkanisation will continue, at least until the ANC’s next conference in 2022, and probably long beyond that. DM
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May the total collapse come sooner rather than later.
I have said it many times before, the ANC in its present form is unsustainable. A split is inevitable.
Excellent article. A most important development!
Dear Stephen, You write; “Unfortunately, this situation is likely to get worse for the ANC.” Why was it necessary to qualify this with the word “unfortunately”. There is little lack of fortune to blame for the ANC’s persistent ability to shoot itself in the foot. Its leadership has long ago abandoned the moral and ethical high ground it was gifted after the demise of apartheid and replaced this with weak and shameful immoral ineptitude for all to see.This is not unfortunate and should not be described as such.
Grootes has always been ANC leaning. Time he started supporting the liberal democratic centre.
I wonder how many “loyal” comrades will fight to be high level deployees once the tax coffers dry up, the trough is empty and the gravy train has left the station?
Rhetoric question ? All of them of course. Rats always leave a sinking ship !
Stephen Grootes is always worthwhile reading to be up to date with the ANC story.
Good commentary Stephen!
A family whose elders abuse their positions of authority in various ways will inevitably face rebellion from the younger ones. The abuse leaves the elders with no integrity. This is exactly what has happened in the ANC. The elders of the family – Zuma, Magashule, et al – have so abused their status through enriching themselves and their friends that the younger ones have no respect left for them and the elders therefore no longer have any authority. Unfortunately, this dysfunctionality is now not only the ANC’s problem; it’s also South Africa’s problem. The ANC has an iron grip on power, and there is no credible alternative to it. Will an ANC split solve the problem? I don’t think it’s that simple.
Time to get that credible alternative! There is only one realistic party that I can think of. No, not the purple party, the ACDC or DeLille’s anc-lite.
Maybe a national federal system will evolve?
The Baulinisation of the entire South Africa will be a good thing. Most people call it a federation. Gauteng can keep Lootooli House.
“Not only is the ANC, as an entity, too enfeebled to lead, but it has undermined, possibly terminally, the entire state. South Africa’s institutional structures may now be too weak to survive as a modern democracy with a rational plan for shared economic growth.” William Saunderson-Meyer
To state the obvious: a ‘Balkanised’ ANC is dangerous for this country. Comments below have noted that the ANC is not going to be voted out anytime soon. Nor is the much hoped split likely to happen. No ANC stakeholder is likely to give up his/her place at the trough.
As a country we don’t deserve a thoroughly corrupted ANC, but we’re stuck with them.
We are indeed ‘ilizwe elibiwe (a stolen country).