A poll ripe with portents -- and a radical option to save the ANC

NEXT month’s local government elections will be the most significant of their kind since the advent of democracy two decades ago. Apart from deciding which political party delivers services to which communities, the outcome will also give us the clearest indication of the lie of the land ahead of the national poll in three years.

Will Jacob Zuma see out his term, or will the outcome galvanise attempts to oust him? Will the electorate continue to show confidence in the ANC or has it finally lost patience with the incompetence and corruption?

The poll comes at an almost inopportune time. The country feels exposed and fearful, its nerves on edge. For the first time violence threatens to blight the elections. Many candidates, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, have been murdered in intraparty rivalry. Most of the victims have been women. One wonders what sort of monster would calmly shoot and kill a mother in front of her children. To many, especially in small towns and rural areas, being a councillor is not only prestigious, it is the only employment opportunity available.

The decision by the Independent Electoral Commission to bar the National Freedom Party from taking part in the elections may be legally correct, but it will further inflame the situation in many parts of KwaZulu-Natal, which could lead to more killings.

South Africa is crying out for a calming, steadying hand. The president is unable to play such a role. He’s a joke, an empty suit and a waste of time — all rolled into one. Life for him is one long, delightful dalliance with dance, damsels and ditties, oiled no doubt by lots of unearned dough, most of it, if not all, corruptly acquired. The country may be going through trying times, but Zuma is having the time of his life — at our expense.

Public confidence in the IEC is at its lowest ebb, drained by the debacle in Tlokwe and other instances of sheer incompetence. Its failure to record voters’ addresses as mandated by law boggles the mind.

Some opposition parties are yet to be convinced of the IEC’s professed impartiality. Such perceptions have not been helped by Zuma’s decision to plonk one of his acolytes into the post of IEC chairman.

The impression should never be given that the IEC has also been captured, to use popular parlance.

The modus operandi is familiar: Zuma appoints sympathetic and, crucially, compromised, unqualified or ill-equipped individuals to key positions. They are thus only too keen to do his bidding. So you have Dudu Myeni running SAA, Hlaudi Motsoeneng at the SABC, Tom Moyane at the South African Revenue Service, Berning Ntlemeza in charge of the Hawks. The list is endless. These are Zuma’s foot soldiers, more at his beck and call than the party could ever be.

Which is why Myeni can run roughshod over governance processes and Ntlemeza can publicly let it be known that he can arrest the minister of finance if he feels like it.

Nothing illustrates the ANC’s powerlessness better than the goings-on at the SABC. After Jackson Mthembu publicly took the corporation to task for its censorship, the SABC disdainfully dismissed his fulminations. Communications Minister Faith Muthambi didn’t even care to turn up for a meeting called by the party to discuss the matter. These people know which side their bread is buttered on — where real power lies.

The poll on August 3 will therefore be something of a bellwether. If the ANC does well, Zuma is safe; if it suffers heavy losses, that emboldens those who want to push him out before his term is over.

But removing Zuma may not be enough to solve the problem. His moral rottenness has afflicted and infiltrated the entire organisation. It is damaged goods.

His likely heirs don’t inspire confidence. Cyril Ramaphosa has neither the stomach nor the backbone to wield the axe to sort out the mess. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who seems to think the presidency is hers for the taking, hasn’t covered herself in glory as AU Commission chairwoman. And she’s cut from the same cloth as her ex-husband. As far as corruption goes, she presided over the first major scandal — the Sarafina! musical — in the new government. She’s never had the decency to apologise for it.

Here’s an idea, a conundrum if you like, for ANC members. To preserve the ANC, to save it from total extinction, they will have to vote against their party, not only next month, but in the elections three years from now. The party needs to be evicted from power if it is to survive. It needs the tranquillity and solitude of the wilderness to reflect and rediscover its mission. Is it to serve or to be served?

Otherwise it will, like many other liberation movements, go the way of the dodo.

Zuma’s moral rottenness has infiltrated the entire organisation

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