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Behind ANC battle linesThe dangerously fractious nature of the ruling alliance led by the African National Congress (ANC) has amply been demonstrated since Jacob Zuma became president. Recent events around Eskom were but one – if not the most graphic – example of a recurring theme.
Diverse issues – often unconnected in content and significance – have at various times caused serious tensions in the alliance, constantly shuffling around the different stakeholders in a political game of musical chairs, threatening to pull the alliance apart and deliver the Zuma administration into the realm of ungovernability.
Only the other day, the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) pooled their resources and energy to assist the majority in the ANC to oust former president Thabo Mbeki and install Zuma in his place. All three felt marginalised by Mbeki for varying reasons, and to varying degrees. After that point, there apparently was unity.
But then, over an issue such as the debate to nationalise South Africa’s mines, the ANCYL, SACP and Cosatu banded together, opposed by the ANC and the government and even one of Cosatu’s own unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Some cynics in the alliance will justify this by calling it “robust debate” and a “democratic culture of allowing different views”. But recently, several 'debates' have gone sour and much beyond that point, producing uncomfortable schisms.
Shortly afterwards, however, Cosatu and the ANCYL were at loggerheads over comments from ANCYL leaders who complained there were not enough “Africans” appointed to head economic cluster ministries.
Cosatu countered by saying it was quite happy with the appointment of Ebrahim Patel (Economic Development) and Rob Davies (Trade and Industry) – both left-wingers – as well as those of Gill Marcus (Reserve Bank Governor), Pravin Gordhan (Finance) and Barbara Hogan (Public Enterprises); none of them “Africans” (another of South Africa’s divisive, problematic and confusing race classifying terms).
For Cosatu and the SACP, the race of ministerial appointees mattered less than that they be “the right people” – in other words, leftists such as Patel and Davies who would further the socialist agenda.
Nonetheless, another clear demonstration of the various factions in the government, the ANC and the broader alliance pulling in different directions, came with the release of a national planning Green Paper by National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel.
The issue divided the ANC and different Cabinet ministers, with some playing for both audiences, others siding with one or the other faction, and with President Zuma remaining mostly silently unseen somewhere in the middle.
Then along comes the issue of the resignation of Eskom’s chief executive officer Jacob Maroga, with the ANCYL and the Black Management Forum (BMF) claiming there was no resignation and blaming it all on “the racist” Bobby Godsell, Eskom’s now-resigned chairperson.
All of which caused Cosatu, the ANC, the NUM, Business Leadership SA (BLSA), the Institute of Directors and others – from widely diverse political and ideological corners – to jump to Godsell’s defence, insisting he was no racist, and lashing out at the ANCYL and the BMF.
For once Cosatu, the ANC and others were pointing out the madness of playing the race card every time things do not go someone’s way and jointly criticised the ANCYL and BMF for doing so, thereby obscuring the real ongoing struggle against racism where it still exists.
Again there was deafening silence on the part of Zuma and his government, which is beginning to remind one of the Mbeki era. Same old problem, new players? Not quite.
But that brings one to the other major fault line that threatens to derail governance in South Africa: the lack of clear and decisive leadership.
Lack of clear leadership
The ANC’s style of governance has moved from one extreme – Thabo Mbeki’s singular, centralised decision-making – to another extreme: Jacob Zuma’s all-appeasing, consensus-style collective decision-making. On the one hand, too little collective input, on the other – too much.
The respected veteran political commentator and journalist Alistair Sparks, writing in Business Day, puts it as follows: “Our country badly needs clear leadership. The silence at the top while cacophony rages in the ranks below is causing confusion and uncertainty. There is a sense of drift in the air.
"One can understand why President Jacob Zuma is so hesitant to spell out his own vision of the road ahead. He is presiding over a fractious coalition that is at war with itself, and to choose any side too clearly in that power struggle is to risk alienating the other and suffering the fate of the departed Thabo Mbeki.
"So he prevaricates, hoping that by lending an attentive ear to everyone without explicitly siding with any, he can keep all sufficiently unruffled to stay in the big alliance tent.”
Death of the alliance?
What is being witnessed seems to be the death of the ANC and the Alliance as we know it. While many of the schisms and cracks are being caused by various factions wanting their pound of flesh for helping to put Zuma in power since Polokwane 2007, the major onslaught is coming from the Left.
Having supported the ANCYL to elevate Zuma into power, the SACP and Cosatu are now making their move to try and seize control over particularly economic policy in an attempt to further their agenda by taking the country from the first-phase “national democratic revolution” (the ANC democratically coming to power) to the second phase of "socialist revolution".
While the ANC has always acted as a strong leader of a political alliance that it dominated, that picture has been changing rapidly since Polokwane. A wounded and weakened ANC, itself fractious and used by many purely as a self-enriching, career-advancing stepping stone, opened up new possibilities of advancement for the Left.
That has led to the SACP and Cosatu ensuring that their ministerial nominees be included in key government positions. It motivated the attack on National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel and his department’s national planning Green Paper, with the Left openly campaigning for Manuel’s removal and the placing of economic policy under control of the leftist Economic Development minister, Patel, among more recent developments.
The important meeting of the alliance parties this past weekend may have misled many into believing that the ANC put its left-wing allies in their place regarding the acceptance of Manual heading the National Planning Commission (NPC). However, these are no more than temporary, tactical developments, subjected to much behind-the-scenes horse-trading. The fact is that the NPC which Manuel will be heading, will be considerably weakened, and will not give Manuel any special say over other ministries – which is exactly what the Left had been fighting against.
The trade-off came when the ANC, for its part, had to make the concession to the Left that the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and its inflation-monitoring role would be reviewed and could lead to changes in that area – something for which the Left has long been fighting.
These battles and tensions are far from over. This was also aptly demonstrated over the weekend when the SACP and Cosatu attempted to strip the ANC of its leading role in the Alliance, making the Alliance (read the SACP and Cosatu) the new “centre of political power”.
Ironically, it was Julius Malema and his ANCYL – close allies of the Left in several previous issues, particularly in bringing Zuma to power – who offered the strongest resistance to the Left’s plans in this regard.
My persomal opinion is that, the president must come out clear and make us all see things in clear colours. There muts be one leadership structure that gives the last ruling word.
Thanks
Bongani Mpinga