Demise or compromise

The two factions that seem to have coalesced around ANC president Jacob Zuma and his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, present the party with two simple options: compromise or suffer significant losses in the 2019 election.

This political reality appears to have galvanised the chairmen of the party’s largest provinces into holding bilateral and multilateral talks, which culminated in the Mbombela indaba hosted by Mpumalanga ANC chairman David Mabuza. It was attend by his Gauteng, North West and Free State counterparts, with KwaZulu-Natal represented by the former premier Senzo Mchunu. Having tasted the bitter fruit of the loss of political power in the Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay local government elections, the ANC factions realise and accept that for their own self-preservation an uncontested single slate is the only way to forge unity.

This approach could avoid the impasse that convoluted, dilatory and protracted court applications may impose on the party and result, for example, in the postponement of the much-awaited December 2017 conference.

Such a compromise deal could be premised on the “branch or region I hold I keep” principle, coupled with a 50-50 sharing of positions from the presidency down to the branches of the party and the government.

Already the beleaguered incumbent has gone on record with a proposal that the two losing strongest presidential hopefuls be automatically elected joint deputy presidents of the party and state if the party wins the 2019 general election.

A preconference compromise deal would give the party the political space and time it needs to focus on service delivery on the one hand, and self-reflection, self-correction and self-healing on the other, between now and the 2024 election, without losing political power.

Dr Nat Makhubele

Ruimsig