IT’S TIME FOR DECISIONS

The ANC policy conference will give indications on a wide range of matters, from presidential succession to state capture to land expropriation. Even the songs will indicate the rank and file’s opinions

The ANC is in for a bruising week of policy discussions as factions square off over SA’S economic direction. The policy conference which starts on Friday is the first national gathering that includes rank and file members since the 2016 local government elections. It will consider reports on the extent of the influence of the Gupta family over President Jacob Zuma’s administration and the economy’s plunge into junk status and recession.

Insiders are increasingly concerned that the divisions in the party will be laid bare during the six-day meeting, particularly around the succession question.

The last national gathering in which policy was discussed was the national general council (NGC) in 2015, when Zuma made the shock revelation that party numbers had dwindled from 1.3m in 2012 to 769,000.

At the NGC, the ANC took decisions to repair, before the 2017 conference season, the damage to the party in terms of perceptions of corruption as well as its organisational decline. But a look back shows the situation has worsened.

The fight over policy discussions is set to centre on the ANC decision on radical economic transformation, and how far to take that 2012 resolution.

The ANC is in an extremely complex position. Its dominant faction has co-opted a narrative created by Gupta-aligned spin doctor Bell Pottinger, which targeted respected institutions such as national treasury and the Reserve Bank, saying they had been captured by “white monopoly capital”.

However, the motive for this narrative does not have the larger transformation agenda at its core. It is about ridding the state of the last obstacles in the way of looting and capture on a far grander scale.

At the same time, the ANC is facing pressure from the electorate over the sluggish pace of transformation and land reform, due to its own failure to implement its own progressive policies. This failure, and the lack of urgency around addressing this matter ahead of the next national election in 2019, could move the party towards a more populist policy stance: for instance, to adopt a policy on land expropriation without compensation.

This is what the ANC in Kwazulu Natal had to say on Sunday after its provincial policy conference: “[We are] . . . unanimous in our conviction that land redistribution, without compensation, constitutes the most rational and progressive way towards restoring the dignity of the dispossessed poor masses of our people.”

The position of factions in relation to this question will be determined by the candidate they are backing to succeed Zuma in December. For instance, Gauteng ANC chairman Paul Mashatile told the party’s provincial policy conference over the weekend that there was no such thing as “white monopoly capital”, in a bid to shift the inherently racial narrative pushed by the Guptas. He said the party would continue to fight white domination in general.

The frontrunners in the succession battle remain Nkosazana Dlamini-zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa. But there is much behind-thescenes wrangling, which could lead to shifts in the coming months.

What it means: It remains an open race for the ANC leadership — Nkosazana Dlaminizuma’s strong opening campaign has started to falter