First published in DM168

On a hot Sunday morning in December 2007, then ANC President Thabo Mbeki took the podium to address the governing party’s 52nd national congress in Polokwane.

The logic of the ANC holding a national congress in Limpopo in the middle of summer remains a mystery. But the heat could be felt inside and outside the giant white marquee that housed the more than 4,000 delegates accredited to attend and vote at the congress.

The stakes were high and so was the political temperature. It was a hotly contested congress, with Mbeki facing his one-time friend-cum-political-nemesis Jacob Zuma.

As Mbeki delivered his opening address and political report on 16 January, it soon became clear that the majority of the delegates were a hostile crowd. His speech centred on the character of the ANC and the direction the party was taking. Some kind of political stock-taking. He then posed a question: “Our collective responsibility in this important gathering is to ask ourselves whether in the recent past our movement has not gravitated away from its moral axis on which have pivoted the leadership of [John] Dube, [Sefako] Makgatho, [Richard] Mahabane and [Albert] Luthuli, among others?” asked Mbeki.

The response was swift. Shouts of “Nguwe” (you’re the cause) soon reverberated throughout the hall.

The mood of the conference had been set. It is now history that Zuma went on to win with a 60:40 ratio.

The lesson was clear. Political conferences are not won on the superiority of an argument but rather on numbers. Those numbers depend largely on who has spent more money buying delegates. Mbeki and Zuma cannot be compared.

One was reminded of that Sunday morning of Mbeki’s speech at the University of Limpopo’s Turfloop campus when ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule was charged with corruption on Friday. A sense of déjà vu set in.

The last time a member of the ANC’s  Top Six was charged with corruption had led to  a political fallout whose ramifications are still being felt today.

The fraud, corruption and racketeering charges laid against Zuma in 2007 are still a subject of a protracted legal battle. Magashule is his political ally.

And it seems the ANC Secretary General has already taken a leaf out of Zuma’s book of political survival. Magashule and his supporters have made it clear they will turn the charges against him into a political fight. It’s a Magashule vs Cyril Ramaphosa scenario.

That Magashule is charged for his role in the looting of R230-million of public funds in a dodgy asbestos tender in the Free State while he was premier seems to be of no consequence to his fervent followers, who have duly launched a “Hands off Magashule” campaign.

The MKMVA are ready to parade their support for Magashule.

Outspoken Ekurhuleni mayor and ANC regional chairman Mzwandile Masina took to Twitter as news spread that a warrant of arrest had been secured by the Hawks against Magashule.

“Arresting leadership based on apartheid laws does not make sense. I reject this arrest and will be in court with my SG to support him against this democratic disgrace. No stepping down is applicable until those documents are unsealed in court. No to selective prosecution,” he tweeted.

The unsealing of documents relates to the case between Ramaphosa and Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane over the president’s bid to keep private the contents of bank statements of his CR17 campaign. The high court had ruled that they be sealed.

It’s going to be a long and drawn-out fight. Magashule has always argued that the investigations against him were part of a political conspiracy to remove him from office. He once told this writer he will never step aside from his position just because he is facing corruption charges. Doing so would be a political blunder. He derives his power and influence from the political office he holds.

By the time Zuma won the Polokwane conference, in 2007, the die had been cast two years earlier, when the ANC’s national general council (NGC) took a decision to reinstate him. This was after he had decided to step down as the ANC’s deputy president, following his firing by Mbeki as the country’s deputy president in June 2005. In his capacity as the ANC’s deputy president, Zuma then set out to launch one of the most spectacular comebacks in the history of political campaigns in this country.

While Mbeki was making observations about the ANC veering off its moral rectitude in Polokwane, Zuma knew he had secured the ground.

As Magashule appeared in court, Ramaphosa would have thought about the Zuma-Mbeki fight. Already some sections of the ANC have been calling for an NGC, a ruse to mount a campaign to remove Ramaphosa. But South Africans should not fall for the political theatrics of some ANC leaders who want to avoid scrutiny. Political considerations are secondary to the rule of law.

There is nothing political about law enforcement attempts to recover billions stolen through State Capture. If Magashule is innocent of the crimes, our courts are well equipped to give him a fair hearing.  Besides, because the victimhood strategy worked for Zuma in 2007 does not mean that it will yield the same results for his disciples.

Ramaphosa must continue to capacitate law enforcement agencies to fight corruption. Even if it costs him the presidency of the ANC at its 55th congress in 2022. Let him stand for a principle.

Now, even one-time Zuma supporters likes Zwelinzima Vavi and Julius Malema agree that Mbeki had tried to save us from a political failure that became the Zuma years. DM168

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