Will ANC cross the Rubicon?
THE beloved country has been on tenterhooks over the election of a new ANC president. English West Country playwright John Ford was the first to record that expression in the play Broken Heart (1633): “Passion, O, be contained. My very heart strings Are on the Tenters.”
And how the ANC has pulled our heart strings. Certainly, outgoing President Jacob Zuma has broken the nation’s heart. Where once the mighty liberation movement and its leaders like Albert Luthuli, OR Tambo and Nelson Mandela were respected and loved the world over, Zuma has left behind a general impression of an organisation and its presidency mired in corruption. His name and the ANC’s have become synonymous with it.
It is no surprise then, ahead of the expected announcement this morning of his replacement, that last night was probably one of the longest in South Africa’s history. It’s comparable to the time the Groot Krokodil, then apartheid president PW Botha, was expected to cross the Rubicon; when he was expected to announce apartheid would end and South Africa would get, in effect, its first black president.
Will history repeat itself? Like Botha, will the ANC too fail its acid test? We hope and pray not. The dreams of a better life for millions hangs in the balance. It may become impossible to keep the lid on a tinderbox of resentment over pitiful poverty that has increased on Zuma and the ANC’s watch.
Given it’s electoral loss of almost all metros, including Johannesburg, the economic heartland of the country, self-correction is undoubtedly a prerequisite for the ANC staying in power.
The two front runners, Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, are starkly different and represent disparate forces. There is no point dwelling on that. By the time you read this the ANC would have decided between the two.
The silver lining is that we do not expect the unsuccessful candidate’s supporters to react with violence. There is no threat of burning barricades in the streets. For that we can be grateful. Investors please take note.