Bizarre backdrop to policy conference set to play out
EVERYONE who is anyone in the ANC will be at the national policy conference, which started in Johannesburg yesterday. Everyone except the three most influential people in the movement: Atul, Ajay and Rajesh.
The Guptas, everybody knows, run the country, pulling the strings in the ANC through President Jacob Zuma and a large network of national and provincial cabinet ministers, government officials and executive and board members of state-owned enterprises.
Since this became widely known, Zuma and the Guptas – with the help of UK public relations (PR) firm Bell Pottinger – have tried to distract attention from this by popularising the narrative that white monopoly capital, which has kept the country’s wealth in white and foreign hands, is the real enemy of the state and the people.
As bizarre as it might seem, these two narratives – the theft of the country by three Indian businessmen in league with the president versus a Marxist concept from the 1960s, given new life by a shameless London PR firm – are the backdrop to the governing party’s policy conference.
Given the surreal nature of it all, it is tempting not to take any of this seriously at all. But, unfortunately, how this and the ANC’s December elective conference play out matters a great deal to South Africa’s future.
First, there are the economic policy questions. In the run-up to the policy conference, provinces have held their own policy discussions and various lobby groups and individuals have spoken on public platforms about policy issues. The most striking of these is expropriation of land without compensation, which although not included in the discussion document on the economy as an option is being vigorously campaigned for by Zuma, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the ANC Youth League, ANC Women’s League and various provinces.
Another hot issue will be regulation in the financial sector and the role of South Africa’s banks following the closure of the Gupta bank accounts. This, and the startling appearance of clauses in a report by public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane questioning the mandate of the Reserve Bank will be used to again push for the establishment of a state bank, an ANC policy that has been repeatedly agreed upon and repeatedly kicked for touch.
The Bank could also come in for flak given the telling comments by Deputy Finance Minister Sfiso Buthelezi earlier this week that inflation targeting may no longer be appropriate policy and that monetary policy should not be regarded as “gospel truth”.
Buthelezi, who was speaking at a Gordon Institute of Business Science Business School forum, could have used the opportunity to dispel the fears raised by the public protector’s report; instead he said he could not comment until after the policy conference.
Buthelezi and Mkhwebane’s comments about the Bank are clearly no coincidence and are a growing indication that the views of finance ministry adviser Chris Malikane are gaining traction in the government and the ANC.
On Wednesday, Malikane, who Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said would only be seen and not heard in public, joined the public debate over the term “white monopoly capital” with a lengthy piece on a pro-Zuma website, clearly in anticipation of the policy conference.
The article was in response to recent comments by ANC Gauteng chairman Paul Mashatile, who said at the province’s policy conference that the term was not part of the ANC’s revolutionary lexicon. As an aside, Malikane’s refutation is fairly emphatic: the SACP introduced the term into its official documents in 1962 and the ANC and alliance leaders have frequently used it, sometimes in a slightly variable word order.
The outcome of the policy conference is already widely anticipated. ANC policy meetings have become what former finance minister Trevor Manuel once characterised as “policy-making by mass meeting”, with delegates queuing up to speak on contentious issues, each one repeating the other to create the impression of overwhelming consensus.
It is expected that the economic transformation commission will produce a resolution that carries many of these “radical” new measures including a commitment to land expropriation without compensation, something around the mandate of the Bank, a commitment (again) to starting up a state bank and support for the new Mining Charter.
For now though, this will remain a draft resolution to be finally debated and adopted at the December conference. The policy conference will, however, give an idea of the relative strengths of the provinces and how they’ll stack up in the Zuma and anti-Zuma camps.
As the Zuma groups will probably be more numerous, and definitely more vociferous, it will be tempting to predict this means Team Zuma has the December conference in the bag. But much can happen between now and then, which brings us back to Atul, Ajay and Rajesh.
The anger against the family within the ANC is huge. While the public feels outraged and robbed, ANC members also feel personally wounded, humiliated and bullied.
The backlash is reminiscent of the anger on the ground that built against Thabo Mbeki’s refusal to provide drugs to treat HIV/Aids through the public health system. It was pressure from the ANC grassroots that caused Mbeki to finally “withdraw from the debate”, opening the way for the only words ANC members wanted to hear: the roll-out of antiretrovirals.
In a similar way, ANC provincial leaders can no longer ignore the Gupta problem if they want to hold on to their provinces. Two weeks ago, Zuma’s most dedicated provincial lieutenant, Sihle Zikalala, told provincial policy delegates “the so-called Gupta bourgeoisie and their unending appetite for wealth accumulation has exposed the movement to unprecedented attack”.
Another, Mpumalanga premier and ANC chairman David Mabuza, recently publicly distanced himself from the Guptas after being accused of sponsoring their events with government money. Mzwandile Masina, mayor of Ekurhuleni and a Zuma acolyte, recently publicly pleaded with Zuma to tell the Guptas the government “needs space” to do its work.
For anti-Zuma provinces and individuals, the Gupta problem is manna from heaven. The steady trickle of leaked e-mails has kept anger on the boil in the branches in a way they themselves could never have done in the course of ordinary political contestation.
The aim of Zuma’s opponents is to target the ordinary ANC member, who even if he or she belongs to a tightly controlled Zuma branch where money and
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Paton is the deputy editor of Business Day