There is little that illustrates more clearly the need for a new, internal, direct one-member, one-vote electoral system in the ANC than the donation to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC presidential campaign by the now-deceased Bosasa boss, Gavin Watson.

Watson, who died in a peculiar high-speed car crash near OR Tambo International Airport this week, seemingly not only extended his largesse to the president’s electoral campaign. In the Zondo Commission into State Capture, revelations were made about how his tender-reliant conglomerate bankrolled and controlled certain ministers who were not at all shy, it would seem, to feed from Watson’s trough.

But, contribute to Ramaphosa’s electoral campaign Watson’s tender-benefiting conglomerate Bosasa certainly did, and although this contribution has been reversed, it has revealed what is surely the biggest fault-line in the ANC – its internal proportional representative voting system.

This rot-infused system makes winning ANC delegates sitting ducks for corruption and has heightened internal contestation for positions to such a degree that political killings have become a norm. It is also challenging the ANC’s legitimacy and has destabilised three provincial structures.

But to return to Watson: he was not the only one oiling the wheels of political aspiration. At the ANC’s 54th national elective conference at Nasrec in 2017, seven candidates were vying for the presidency – Ramaphosa, Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma; former Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete; Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Lindiwe Sisulu; two former ANC treasurers-general, Dr Zweli Mkhize and Mathews Phosa; and retired all-round minister Jeff Radebe.

The stakes could not have been higher. Ramaphosa’s wealthy friends did not wish to see him losing and forked out big time to ensure his victory – and this money went around and around inside the ANC.

Recent revelations about Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC presidential campaign bank account payments to various stakeholders, including Cosatu, as confirmed by its general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali, and various ANC figures including ministers, before and after Nasrec, show that money was raised to lobby support, provide transport, accommodation, food and sweeten the 2% of ANC members who attended the elective conference to vote for the party’s leadership.

This scenario is not confined to the CR17 campaign. It has been going on inside the ANC since its unbanning in 1990. All that has changed is that the amounts of money involved are being pushed higher and higher.

Clearly, the situation is unsustainable. Simply put, the system in which only those nominated by branches to attend provincial elective conferences are able to vote for provincial leaders, is an unmitigated disaster.

It not only leaves delegates wide open to bribery and capture and has given rise to corruption, gate-keeping and vote-rigging, but is the root of the ANC’s growing problem of legitimacy that has collapsed provincial structures in the Western Cape, North West and Free State.

Indeed, the present system is so fraught with loopholes that even long-deceased comrades are apparently able to make it out of their sacred graves to attend and vote at branch general meetings.

In North West, the ANC provincial structure was dissolved when Supra Mahumapelo was removed following mass action. Professor Job Mokgoro was appointed as interim premier to run the province until a provincial elective conference can be convened. When this is likely to happen, nobody knows.

Today there is nothing more urgent in the bid to rescue the ANC than doing away with this crooked system of political rent-buying and introducing instead a modern and more democratic system of one ANC member, one vote – one in which each and every ANC member votes directly for all the organisation’s leaders, from the president, to the secretary-general and treasurer-general all the way down to the branch chairperson.

The bottom line is that without the introduction of a one ANC member, one vote system there is no hope of the ANC recovering the Western Cape, or stabilising the other blighted provinces and the organisation as a whole.

Put another way, if the ANC wishes to escape its tortuous but now all-too-predictable death spiral, there is no way around this matter – the branch delegate conference format must be scrapped in which 2% of ANC members attend to elect leaders on behalf of 98% of members left in the cold at home.

So, where to from here?

The recent instruction by ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule to all structures to introduce and use a new membership recording system by the end of August 2019, may be a crucial step forward to putting the organisation on a new trajectory – one that may lead towards salvation. If implemented correctly this could be the beginning of ANC renewal.

There are two essential components to such an approach. First is the principle – the adoption of a one ANC member, one vote method for electing new provincial chairs, secretaries, treasurers and provincial executive committees.

Second is the strategy. The ANC must adopt an electronic membership system for all ANC structures with a secure database that consolidates and verifies all the identification details of every member, using photographs, fingerprinting and certified copies of IDs. If this happens, the ANC’s problematic membership list can be cleaned up and streamlined and it will allow authentic members to elect their own leaders both electronically and manually – a dual voting to guarantee the integrity of the votes.

The electronic method must use a biometric system: a member places a finger on a biometric mat, the booth opens and the member enters to vote. The counting of votes from the biometric system must then be compared against the manual ballots recorded, to establish the integrity of the voting system. Voting for provincial leaders must be an open process in every province in which all ANC members participate.

Representatives must still be elected to attend commissions, participate in discussions and make resolutions at provincial conferences. But they will not be the only ones involved in choosing leaders: members who do not attend provincial conferences will vote electronically at regional offices at the same time as those present at the provincial conferences.

This means voting by the entire provincial membership can take place simultaneously.

If such a system is implemented, it will be the first time since the inception of the ANC in 1912 that each and every ANC member takes part in voting directly for their provincial leaders.

If such a system is implemented and adhered to, it will eliminate the fierce in-fighting among branch members to become regional representatives (delegates) to ANC provincial elective conferences.

Given Magashule’s new directive, the Western Cape ANC elective conference might just present the opportunity for a turnaround for the ANC. If it is implemented properly, then with Cape Town as the Mother City, the Western Cape could become the mother province of the modern ANC and signal renewal nationwide.

While most South Africans were surely relieved that the Ramaphosa 2017 ANC presidential campaign did not dip into taxpayers’ money, according to the current bank records, the worrying factor is that the Ramaphosa-supporting business barons, such as Gavin Watson, would be expecting favours from the Ramaphosa government in return.

While Watson is now out of the picture, he was not a lone operator. Introducing a one ANC member, one vote system within the ANC for electing leaders will minimise the likelihood of exorbitant sums of money being dished out to politicians as a quid pro quo.

This assumes, of course, that there is no one rich enough to bribe the entire ANC membership. DM