NATASHA MARRIAN

Chance for ANC to reverse meltdown

THE heat is on the African National Congress (ANC) — as it begins its national general council in Gauteng today, the province is in the midst of an unforgiving heatwave, serving only to worsen the discomfort with which many party faithful may be entering the gathering.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) provided a friendly, nonevasive nudge on Wednesday about the extent of the jobs crisis — piggybacking two of its pet peeves on the action: labour brokers and electronic tolling.

While listening is a forte of the more powerful ally, the ANC, and yelling remains Cosatu’s bent, doing is a function of neither. However disingenuous, Cosatu’s march did highlight the jobs bloodbath unfolding in critical sectors of the economy ahead of the key ANC meeting.

It is disingenuous in my view because Cosatu spent the better part of the past three years fighting petty internal battles with little thought for its members, many of whom now enter the harrowing terrain of struggle called unemployment.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed the powers of the office of the public protector when it dismissed South African Broadcasting Corporation chief operating officer — and the Dalai Lama of modern journalism — Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s appeal against a High Court order that he be suspended and that disciplinary action be instituted against him.

After an icy reception to the word “binding” in the hearings preceding the judgment, the court ruled that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s remedial action could not be ignored and confirmed that her office was a “watchdog”. Significantly, the court ruled that in the absence of a review application, parties were not entitled to ignore Madonsela’s findings.

Having put in all that time and work on snazzy videos as an alternative to Madonsela’s findings on Nkandla, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko must rue the hours spent away from crime fighting to focus on a task that may eventually be rendered pointless and sadly irrelevant.

All of this makes the national general council particularly interesting — as the party is discussing economic policy to deal with unemployment, while its document on the balance of forces goes into detail about the ANC’s slipping electoral fortunes.

Questions will have to be asked about its decline in electoral support in urban areas on a slight improve- ment in support in rural and informal settlements. It notes starkly in its document that the ANC seems to have shed support both among the lower and middle strata among Africans, as well as the poorest of the poor in the country’s metros.

The electoral choices of these groups reflect the “rising primacy of current issues” such as corruption and e-tolls on electoral choices — this, the party contends, denotes the “fickleness” of this group.

The Nkandla matter is set to go to the Constitutional Court in February next year, months before the local government election.

Nkandla, both among those who feel President Jacob Zuma is complicit and those who don’t, remains a stark incarnation of state corruption and the private sector’s enabling of it.

The ANC’s support in urban areas had also slipped following the 2011 local government elections — which took place after its 2010 national general council, at which Zuma brought warring factions into line with a strong message on discipline.

This time around, the party is again dealing with factions internally, but the factors affecting it from the outside are even more pressing.

It is therefore critical for it to emerge united and clear on a strategy to reverse its electoral fortunes.

Even if all delegates and leaders put aside self-interest, does it have ideas on rescuing jobs or to blunt the dagger of corruption piercing its very heart? And does it have the will to put those ideas into play?

There is little evidence to show that it does, but hope is never a futile endeavour.

The factors affecting the party from the outside are even more pressing