BALLOT BOX SHOCK THERAPY REQUIRED

Factionalism is still rife, despite the leadership’s pious pledges. The rank and file need an electoral wake-up call next year

The ANC needs a drastic shake-up, particularly at grassroots level — but it will take a salutary electoral shock for this bottommost tier before renewal starts in a meaningful way. Last week, the ANC list process was meant to wrap up.

The process is crucial as it determines who will represent the party in the provincial and national legislatures, and who will be appointed as speakers, MECs and cabinet ministers.

But only 46% of branches had submitted their nominations by the cut-off date on September 18, the Sunday Times reports. For the process to move to the next stage, at least 70% of branches must have nominated their candidates.

Delays were caused after many branches had to be reconstituted because memberships had expired. It is interesting that more than half the ANC branches were not properly constituted to nominate candidates for the list process, yet the party held a national elective conference only nine months ago and a few provincial conferences since then — all of which required the participation of properly constituted branches in good standing.

But the secretary of the ANC electoral committee, Livhuwani Matsila, tells the FM there is nothing untoward about this. He says branch membership is not determined by the electoral cycle of the party but by the lapsing of individual memberships.

For a branch to be in good standing, it needs to meet the 100-member threshold.

The deadline for nominating candidates for next year’s lists has now been extended to October 15, which Matsila says is the last possible date. Failure to conclude the process by then would jeopardise the quality control mechanisms, such as lifestyle audits and vetting to ensure candidates are not facing criminal charges or internal disciplinary action. If these measures are rushed due to lack of time, the candidates cannot be properly assessed.

Then there is the inevitable rash of disputes — ahead of almost every election since 2007, the ANC has had to deal with countless objections and counter-objections to its list process.

After the 2011 local election, the ANC set up a team headed by Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to look into how 125 councillors had come to be fraudulently nominated. Mechanisms were introduced to prevent such travesties happening again, but nevertheless divisive clashes over lists have erupted ahead of every subsequent election, both local and national.

Former secretary-general Ace Magashule, the second-highest official implicated in state capture after Jacob Zuma, ran the party’s list process ahead of the last national election in 2019 and was accused of manipulating it to ensure RET-aligned comrades made it into the national and provincial legislatures.

The result, insiders say, was that President Cyril Ramaphosa had few decent ministerial options on the list and the cabinet he appointed was weak, divided and largely useless.

The ANC implemented a new membership system in 2020, but this was hampered by the pandemic lockdowns, and the flaws have yet to be ironed out. The overhaul involved shifting from a purely paperbased system to an interactive digital one. But it didn’t address the party’s main problem: the calibre of the individuals it attracts as members.

The ANC’s list guidelines show that the core of its selection process remains unchanged the party’s top seven may add more names to the national list to bolster capacity, but the number is capped at 20. These picks presumably add crucial skills required not only in the National Assembly but also in the incoming cabinet.

Even 20 good men and women could really enhance the capacity of the government, but Ramaphosa has never been one to seize a political opportunity, even if it bites him in the backside.

The ANC is facing its toughest election yet, but it is still hobbled by an outdated, factional way of doing things.

Its leaders shout renewal, but on the ground it is largely business as usual. It is this bottom tier that most needs a wakeup call and those in it have got one coming if an election setback deals a body blow to their political hopes.

It is this bottom tier that most needs a wakeup call and those in it have got one coming if an election setback deals a body blow to their political hopes