Guided by expedience, ANC keeps on digging

THE Western Cape is not Mpumalanga, and nor, for that matter, is Gauteng. Now that we’ve got the bleeding obvious out of the way, the next item on the agenda is why the African National Congress (ANC) and its tripartite allies insist on acting not only as if all the provinces are the same, with the same demographics, priorities and concerns, but as if nothing has changed in the country since the early 1990s, when the ANC occupied the moral and political high ground and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) dominated workforces around the country.

I touched on this in my previous column when commenting on the fact that Marius Fransman had been re-elected unopposed as Western Cape ANC leader, despite a clear failure to deliver on his promises during his first term. If at all possible, the factionalism, misgovernance of ANC-controlled municipalities and loss of electoral support has worsened since he was elected in 2011.

Party sources told the Financial Mail Fransman didn’t actually have the support of sufficient branches to return as provincial leader without a bruising fight, and the national executive committee was none too keen either given his track record, especially considering the Western Cape ANC’s performance in last year’s national and provincial elections. But when it became clear that provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile was going to be ousted too, the national leadership decided Fransman should stay on in the interests of continuity.

Such expedience seldom goes unpunished in the long run — and sometimes in the short run, as came to pass in this instance. The reason the carpet was pulled from under Mjongile’s feet was that he had fallen out with former Cape Town councillor Andile Lili — he of faeces-flinging fame — who Fransman and others in the provincial “brains trust” were keen to have on board in the hope that his leadership of the Ses’Khona People’s Rights Movement would help the party reconnect with poor communities. Lili had accused Mjongile of being behind an attempt to assassinate him, so there was no way the two could serve on the provincial committee together.

Now, of course, in addition to awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of contravening the Civil Aviation Act in February, when the notorious poo protest incident took place, Lili has been arrested and charged with incitement after urging a crowd (outside court, nogal!) to “brutally” kill any criminals they catch because it’s a waste of time handing them over to the police. I sincerely hope mob justice wasn’t the kind of popular support the ANC had in mind when it decided to turn a blind eye to Lili’s unconventional and illegal protest methods, but even if its ethical standards have fallen that low, it was a really dumb move politically.

Apart from alienating Mjongile’s rather more reasonable support base, as mentioned earlier the Western Cape is not Mpumalanga or the North West, where political contestation is largely between ANC factions and the party is likely to pick up a comfortable electoral majority no matter how much corruption and infighting goes on. The Western Cape electorate is, by and large, disgusted by the concept of faeces flinging as a form of political protest, wants nothing to do with parties in which assassination is accepted as a means of clearing the political decks, and does not want to be governed by a party whose leaders advocate vigilantism as a solution to crime.

Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich, who is also ANC leader in the Cape Town council, suffers under the same delusion. When Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille noted in a speech at a council meeting last month that Ehrenreich’s former union, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), had renounced its Cosatu membership on the basis that the union federation no longer represents the interests of workers or the poor, she was clearly just getting in a cheap shot. But Ehrenreich’s dual role raises some serious questions that a competent ANC provincial leadership should want answered.

Such as whether Ehrenreich can continue to act as if Cosatu and the ANC are one and the same in the province when it is apparent that a good number of trade union members, possibly even a majority, are already voting for other parties— a situation that is surely only going to get worse for the alliance when Numsa eventually gets around to launching its worker-orientated political party.

That’s something the national ANC leadership is going to need to ponder soon too.

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Marrs is Cape editor.