Wrangling has left ANC without strategy
Will the ANC survive the Zondo commission of inquiry, or will it turn out to be a manifesto for the opposition that will chip away at the governing party’s electoral fortunes until it is reduced to leader of a coalition government after the 2019 general election?
Nhlanhla Nene, who quit last Monday, was the first sitting minister to testify before the commission chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, which is investigating claims of corruption and state capture.
Popular wisdom has it that Nene is also its first casualty, but it would be more accurate to say he is the first casualty of the civil war raging within the ANC.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the Moerane inquiry into the killing of politicians, revealed that ANC officials have been organising hits on each other for as little as R20,000 over competition for lucrative tenders. Until the establishment of the Zondo commission, one faction of the ANC believed the probe would vindicate it and strengthen its hand in the party. Another, which resisted the inquiry, felt targeted and sought but failed to dilute its terms of reference.
It is true that the Zondo commission is no ordinary inquiry. First, it was ordered by another arm of state; second, that arm of state the public protector drew up the terms of reference; and lastly and even trickier, it took the power to select the chair away from the sitting president and give it to the chief justice.
As it turns out, Jacob Zuma’s faction was defeated at the ANC’s 54th national conference last December, setting in motion his ultimate ouster in 2018 by Cyril Ramaphosa’s faction, which had campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket.
By the time of his recall Zuma had already been forced to appoint the commission.
Zuma, who still denies the existence of state capture, had felt former public protector Thuli Madonsela was usurping a sitting president’s constitutional powers to appoint judicial commissions, ignoring the obvious issue of conflict of interest.
What the ANC internal wrangling over whether to institute a commission has done is leave the party without a proper strategy. Of course, this isn’t to suggest the opposition has one. Since the start of the commission’s public hearings the ANC has struggled to speak with one voice. Until recently, the dominant approach was to dismiss damning disclosures made at the commission with glib statements such as “the ANC is not on trial here, individuals are”. This despite the fact that senior ANC executives were spending time at the public hearings, suggesting concern at the embarrassing testimonies being broadcast.
The turning point appears to have been damning revelations by the country’s commercial banks that they were summoned to Luthuli House, the party’s headquarters, to account for why they had closed the Gupta accounts. Both the banks and ANC officials have sought to underplay the significance of these meetings, but they speak volumes.
Unlike the meetings called by Mosebenzi Zwane, allegedly acting on behalf of a cabinet interministerial committee, the ones at Luthuli House were honoured by the banks. The ones with Zwane, a Zuma and Gupta ally, were largely ignored.
The significance of the Luthuli House meetings is that they were attended by Zuma’s allies and supporters of Ramaphosa, then ANC secretary-general now party chair and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, and Enoch Godongwana, the head of the ANC’s economic transformation committee.
Not only is this awkward, it also places them at the scene of a crime, so to speak (an attempt, which will be denied, to lean on the banks). This was another manifestation of the fact that the party did not have a strategy.
It still doesn’t have one. Even though its deployees couldn’t possibly control the terms of reference of the Zondo commission as Zuma had ably done with the Marikana commission of inquiry they did have an opportunity to agree on an approach. They squandered it, thanks to the ANC’s civil war. Over a year ago it missed an opportunity to create a safe space for victims of state capture to tell their stories. Only civil society bodies offered this avenue.
Back to poor Nene: though a loyal ANC member, he was left to his own devices. He prepared his own affidavit, and was most likely knifed by his own comrades. The commission just became a slaughter house.
Nene is unlikely to be the last one though. As the commission continues, the ANC’s various factions will use it to snipe at each other, using damaging secrets that have hitherto been kept sealed under an uneasy “live and let live” understanding.
Now it seems too late to cobble together a credible strategy to save face ahead of the 2019 polls.
THE ANC SEEMS AT SEA AS
THE ZONDO COMMISSION EXPOSES THE PARTY’S INTERNAL CONFLICTS AHEAD OF THE 2019 ELECTIONS
● Dludlu is a former Sowetan editor