Look beyond the ANC for SA’S future wellbeing

THIS week, the African National Congress (ANC) finally opened its long-awaited process for nominating leaders ahead of its elective conference in Mangaung. As widely expected, the ANC Youth League has punted the names of its preferred candidates, with Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe leading its slate. Motlanthe made it clear last month that he will not be keen to participate in a process based on slates. This was disingenuous as he knows that leadership in the ANC is contested through slates.

Motlanthe is unlikely to show any courage and take on President Jacob Zuma. He will most likely be cowed by the recently released audited membership figures of the ANC that showed 87,000 new members in eight months. Even if Motlanthe were to oppose Zuma and win, it is not clear he has anything substantively different to bring to the party. His ideas about what needs to change in the ANC and the country are a mystery. His only contribution could be to boost the tattered public image of the ANC and shift perceptions about the country.

Motlanthe’s success, which appears remote in the face of membership inflation, in KwaZulu-Natal, would give the ANC a lifeline it does not deserve. It would also give SA false comfort. On the other hand, Zuma’s continued reign guarantees the ANC’s accelerated demise. It also presents an urgent challenge to the public to become a lot more engaged politically. This prospect forces us to think harder about the country’s future. In the ANC’s new culture of “everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost”, Zuma occupies the role of the party’s gravedigger. Under him, the ANC lost significant moral capital and has become a spent force. Will he be allowed to sustain the destruction of the party beyond Mangaung?

Motlanthe, or any other potential contender, is unlikely to reverse the rot or reset the country’s direction for the better. The ANC has reached a cul-de-sac. Factions are in full swing and they rule the roost.

Motlanthe is familiar with the nature of these factions, being one of the two longestserving members of the national working committee. What is now clear from the ANC’s membership audit is that Zuma’s return is almost a done deal.

Rather than paying too much attention to what may or may not come out of Mangaung, we should be preoccupied with how best to fix the country beyond Mangaung. Before we consider that, let’s look at the various cards the Zuma faction may play in blocking any potential challenge by Motlanthe.

The first would be that electing Motlanthe is like reversing time. As secretary-general under Thabo Mbeki’s presidency, Motlanthe was in effect running Luthuli House. During Mbeki’s second term, which also coincided with Zuma’s trials over rape allegations and later corruption charges, Motlanthe presided over a deeply divided ANC in Luthuli House. It was under his watch that Luthuli House was chaotic, if not dysfunctional.

Motlanthe did not only fail to control the factions, which have now become a monstrosity threatening to tear the party asunder, but he gave them life when he insisted on tabling hoax e-mails that purported a political conspiracy against Zuma at the party’s national executive committee meeting. The party’s character dramatically changed after this incident and the factions were unleashed. Although his was a comradely gesture in support of Zuma, Motlanthe’s past may be used to deconstruct his saintly image and reframe him as a relic that contributed in fomenting the party’s ills.

More of Motlanthe’s skeletons could yet be dug up if he takes on Zuma. Further, the Zuma faction will likely argue that it is not necessary to have another bruising elective conference when the party has not yet healed from the one five years ago, and preserving party unity should reign supreme.

As such, Motlanthe and any other contestant could be accused of promoting narrow, selfish interests at the expense of party unity. But that is falsely constructed. Zuma’s faction may also persuade those who are restless by pointing out that this will be Zuma’s final term and therefore there is no need for a rush to remove him.

Given that the ANC is set on a path of selfdestruction, the rest of society should envision and strive for a future beyond the ANC. While options may seem constrained for now, especially due to the weaknesses of the opposition parties, a new movement aimed at curtailing the ANC train in 2014 should be on an accelerated rise.

The starting point would be to explore and popularise the notion of “anything but the ANC” in 2014 in place of the fizzling “anyone but Zuma” campaign. In the medium to long term, a new set of ideas on how to recast the country’s future beyond the ANC should be developed.

Qobo is affiliated to the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation at the University of Pretoria and is a member of the Midrand Group.