Have ANC progressed from liberation politics to democracy?

The suggested clampdown on the media by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is nothing new. In the liberation struggle era the ANC used friendly media to its advantage, while coming down hard on those who opposed it in any way. A critical test is at hand on the question of to what extent the ANC has made a successful change-over from being a liberation movement to a party committed to proper democratic government.

During the liberation struggle black journalists who criticised the ANC’s liberation-before-education strategy, the “necklace” killing of people accused by street mobs of being “sellouts”, etc. in the eighties were terrorised by the ANC’s supporters in the burning townships.

Many of the more senior cadres in the ANC of today, and indeed in the SA Communist Party (SACP) which has given its support for the clampdown on press freedom, grew up politically within the ideological confines where the media and information were seen as a tool to be tightly controlled by the state and used as far as possible to its own advantage.

Therefore, while the media’s recent relentless reporting of ANC corruption, governance breakdown and delivery failure may have intensified the anti-media stance in the ANC, it did not start it. Over many decades it has become ingrained in the culture of the ANC.

In 1997 Nelson Mandela himself and the ANC raised concerns over sectors of the media not being sympathetic to the ANC – reflecting the ongoing misconception in the ANC of the role of the media.  It was then decided that the ANC had to work to win the "battle of ideas". Part of this called for the implementation of a "cadre policy” that would ensure “that the ANC plays a leading role in all centres of power" in government and in key structures of civil society, including the media.

Several subsequent speeches and articles originating from within the ANC in the years since were concerned with the ANC’s failure to “transform” the privately owned media and to curtail its perceived hostility towards the ANC.

By 2007, when Jacob Zuma and the ANC faction led by him rose to power at Polokwane, this issue was articulated into an adopted resolution to establish a state-controlled media tribunal.

Now as an apparent feeding frenzy has been unleashed against the media in some parts of the ANC and the broader Alliance, the next crucial stage of the battle for control of information and ideas –which the Constitution says should be protected as a freely accessible right of all South Africans - will be at the ANC’s National General Council meeting next month.

What has been an old idea drifting around within the ANC for many decades, may finally be turned into law. But how repressive or otherwise that law and other related laws will be, and if the final products will withstand the test of the Constitution in the Constitutional Court,  remains to be seen.

In the meantime within the Alliance the proposed media appeals tribunal (MAT) seems to have reached an important stage in that all three of the ruling Alliance partners – the ANC, Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and SA Communist Party (SACP) now broadly support the idea. Cosatu’s position will be formalised at a central executive committee meeting this week.

Maybe not smooth sailing

However, it might not be all plain sailing going forward for the Alliance. Cosatu may differ considerably from the ANC over the details of such a tribunal, while some differences may also still be raised by the SACP which has yet to adopt more than an informal position on the question.

In sharp contrast to what the ANC has proposed, a Cosatu document indicates that the labour federation wants a tribunal that cannot be manipulated or abused by the state and will not lead to pre-publication self-censorship by newspapers. That could still prove to be a very important distinction.

With the proposed Protection of Information Bill, the ANC has been less successful in obtaining universal support from its allies and in its own ranks. Senior Alliance figures like Cosatu’s secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi and the ANC’s Pallo Jordan and Ronnie Kasrils have condemned the bill in its present form, which the media fears will muzzle it and subject journalists to the risk of lengthy jail terms and huge fines.

However, apart from Cosatu’s Vavi, the objections have mostly come from people who may be seen to be influential in the ANC but who are no longer in executive government or legislative positions. Very few if any objections have come from those ANC members in positions of power. In fact some of the harshest criticism of the media has come from ANC parliamentarians.

And the campaign for muzzling and controlling the media has been led by high-visibility, populist leaders like President Jacob Zuma, SACP leader Blade Nzimande and ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.

The ANC will also have to contend with a broad local and international campaign of opposition to its plans coming from influential organisations in the legal profession, media organisations here and abroad, foreign governments, influential South African writers, the higher education sector, various opposition political parties, the Public Protector, the SA Human Rights Commission, South African business, the Foundation for Human Rights and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation among many others who have made their voices heard.

At the same time the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has said it will privately lobby ANC members of parliament to vote against the Protection of Information Bill and oppose the media tribunal.

Taken together, these developments represent one of the biggest mobilisations of public opposition to political plans of the ruling party since it came to power in 1994 ... opposition the ANC may not find that easy to ignore.

The media could help facilitate an “amicable deal” through self-inspection and counter proposals. The Press Council of South Africa (PCSA) and the media ombudsman have already made a start by acknowledging that there is room for improvement and announcing that the PCSA will undertake a complete review of its constitution.

Media freedom in South Africa, for now remains finely balanced on a very thin knife’s edge.