Duarte on “brand ANC”
Ruling party enters the municipal elections with a number of self-inflicted wounds
The political temperature ahead of the 2016 local election is burning hot. Change, or something like it, is palpable. The ANC is on the back foot — and the setback is almost entirely self-inflicted.
Two recent key events are an indication of the poison and decay in SA’s politics.
The first is last week’s spy tapes judgment. The political ramifications for the election are simple: the ANC will go to the polls with a president once again facing the prospect of corruption charges, which he narrowly averted in 2009.
It has come full circle. The party is back where it started before Mokotedi Mpshe, then prosecutions head, crowned Jacob Zuma’s Polokwane party leadership victory by dropping corruption charges against him.
In April, this decision was set aside as irrational, after years of legal wrangling in the case brought by the Democratic Alliance. Zuma and the national prosecuting authority lodged an application for leave to appeal with the court, but permission for this was turned down last Friday.
The ruling was handed down by three high court judges, led by Judge President Audrey Ledwaba. It said: “The setting aside of the withdrawal of criminal charges has an effect that the charges are automatically reinstated.”
ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, in an interview this week, dismissed the case as a “gimmick” pursued by the DA since 2008.
The second event is the slow finality brought to the Nkandla saga by the constitutional court at the end of March.
In that scathing judgment, in which the nation was taught a collective lesson in leadership, a full bench of the court found that Zuma had failed to uphold, defend and protect the constitution, the heart of SA’s democracy.
The judges went further, ordering that Zuma pay back a reasonable portion of the undue benefits accrued to him and his family during the R246m security upgrades to his private residence at Nkandla.
National treasury was tasked with determining this “reasonable portion” and on Monday this week delivered its report to the court, finding that Zuma should pay 87.9% of the costs of the five items deemed undue benefits by public protector Thuli Madonsela in her 2014 report, “Secure in Comfort”. This amounts to R7.8m, an amount which the court will now have to approve before Zuma is given 45 days to pay back the money.
The constitutional court case on Nkandla was brought by the Economic Freedom Fighters and later joined by the DA. But the case was preceded by over two years of denial, obfuscation, parallel investigations and a blatant side-stepping of the constitutional mandate given to the public protector by none other than cabinet ministers, MPs and the president himself. This is now among the baggage the ANC is carrying into the polls despite the near-certainty of Zuma and the NPA petitioning the supreme court of appeal after Friday’s ruling.
Duarte says that as the ANC runs its ground campaign, the Nkandla question does arise, but it is not a preoccupation. On the one hand most members are concerned about what they view as a “campaign against him” but there are critics who say that the judgment implies Zuma “should go”. The party’s view, she says, is that he has “delivered for the poor” and that “brand ANC” continues to hold sway in SA. “Brand ANC is still incredibly strong and sturdy. It is hard for people to forget what the ANC has done . . . they are critical, but they continue to have an acute understanding of their liberation,” she says.
“It is unquantifiable . . . it is not a substantive thing, it’s a feeling . . . an alternative is horrendous to contemplate.”
Nkandla and the 783 charges of corruption, however, are just the latest in a string of problems.
The axing of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December topped a difficult year for SA. Nene was replaced with backbencher David Des van Rooyen, causing the rand to tank and markets to reel. Zuma was forced to backtrack on the appointment four days later, reappointing erstwhile finance minister Pravin Gordhan to the post.
Zuma’s track record with appointments has been far from solid, but his move to recalibrate treasury was a step too far. Longrumoured allegations emerged of a hidden hand in the SA state, and deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas said Zuma’s friends and family benefactors, the Gupta family, had offered him the post of finance minister while Nene was still in the position.
An ANC probe into state capture and the influence of the Guptas fell flat because of the strength of Zuma’s support in the party’s top structures, the national working committee and the national executive committee. So began yet another case of the ANC rallying around its president to obfuscate and quash serious allegations, which may very well return to haunt it as Nkandla and the corruption charges have done.
Duarte admits that there is anxiety ahead of the polls among the party faithful. But she says this has little to do with the president and more to do with other pressing matters, such as job creation and the economy.
The economy continues to limp, despite a reprieve from ratings agencies. The fact that SA is not out of the woods was illustrated in a behind-closed-doors presentation by Gordhan to the SA Communist Party’s central committee last month.
According to the presentation, SA’s outlook reflected worsening conditions: lower investment growth; weak confidence; a weak rand; weak commodity prices; household spending reduced by higher inflation; low job creation; drought; electricity a growth constraint until 2018; and headline inflation above the target band until 2018, eroding spending power, especially of the poor. Significantly, the presentation highlighted how the country’s languishing in a low-growth trap meant “broken promises”, especially to the “majority of the unemployed young, less educated and jobless for more than a year”.
“Youth unemployment rate deteriorated to 54.5% in 1Q2016 . . . this is a long-term rise following rapid increase from 45.6% in 2008 due to the economic crisis,” the presentation said. It also highlighted possible structural reforms to assist, but Gordhan admits that globally such reforms are hard to implement. Carrying out the National Development Plan and the Nine Point Plan could see GDP growth swell beyond 1.5%.
Another element which has surfaced with devastating effects on the ANC’s election campaign is its own internal processes to select councillors and mayoral candidates. Ahead of and after it submitted its final candidate lists to the electoral commission, members who were not selected as candidates revolted against the party. Some registered as independent candidates.
From KwaZulu Natal to Gauteng and the North West, the deep contestation over positions and access to power dealt a blow to the party’s campaign. Violent clashes in KwaZulu Natal and the killing of three party members characterised this.
In Gauteng, Tshwane erupted after former cabinet minister and MP Thoko Didiza was announced as the mayoral candidate for the key metro. The move was intended to quell factional fighting between two strong groups linked to the party’s regional chairman and incumbent executive mayor Kgosientso “Sputla” Ramokgopa and his deputy in the party, Mapiti Matsena. Five people were killed in the violence, more than 20 buses were burnt and around 50 people were arrested following widespread looting and other violent protests.
Duarte says democracy is no simple matter — that the party needs to inculcate a culture of “acceptance of the outcomes of democracy” in its ranks. She admits that it has not been easy and it is time for the ANC to review its own processes on councillor selection.
Amid the turmoil, the ANC must prepare for its 2017 elective conference in which a successor for Zuma will be elected. Power plays are already being hatched and this battle is looming after the municipal poll, the outcomes of which will have an impact on the party’s future leadership.
Party head of elections Nomvula Mokonyane admits, as opposition parties circle, that there was a similar temperature, if not as intense, ahead of the 2014 polls. This, too, centred on the president. A month before those polls, the public protector released her Nkandla report.
Mokonyane says the party will simply hammer home its message to voters through face-to-face contact and “stick to its narrative” that it is the only vehicle which can take the country forward. Lessons have been learnt, she says.
“Out of what we have been going through, many opportunities have arisen; members realise the risk we face of losing out because of our own goals,” she says.
In the next 30 days the party will drive its campaign messaging home and, come election day, will focus on one area that could lead to losses: voter turnout. It is putting together a logistics plan to ensure that it gets potential ANC voters to the polling station on August 3.
But the DA and municipal newcomers the EFF are intent on dealing the governing party a severe blow, targeting growth across SA, but in big cities in Gauteng particularly.
According to the electoral commission (IEC), this election has the highest number of political parties contesting, the highest number of independent candidates and the largest voters roll since 1994, and is hotly contested.
The stakes are high for SA and for the ANC.
What is to follow will be a test for SA and its democracy and, importantly, a critical test for the liberation movement which led the country into its first election in 1994 and beyond.
MEMBERS REALISE THE RISK WE FACE OF LOSING OUT BECAUSE OF OUR OWN GOALS NOMVULA MOKONYANE