A MOVEMENT ADRIFT

The national policy conference offered the ANC an opportunity to redeem itself from accusations of state capture and bitter infighting. Instead, it showed a party at a loss to offer any kind of leadership

The ANC was hopeful that its national policy conference would provide the perfect platform to address some of the pressing issues that have led the party to the precarious state it is in. But the writing was on the wall almost from the start, as different provinces aligned their policy imperatives with the longer game of succession, which will be decided at the ANC’S elective conference in December.

For the populace, the interest lay in what critical changes the party would make to its policies to lift the country from the rut it is in.

However, the debates taking place behind closed doors at Johannesburg’s Nasrec Expo Centre offered little hope. Instead, they showed a party unable to chart a way forward for either itself or the country.

The ANC went into the conference aware that it could be so hamstrung by internal squabbles that thorough conversation about policies and the party’s failure to implement them would be hijacked by rhetoric, as delegates pushed the line dictated by their presidential hopefuls.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe set the tone, presenting a brutal diagnostic report that some would have hoped would remain under the carpet — even at the peril of the organisation and the country.

It saw the light of day, but whether it would be adopted by the plenary at the end of the six-day gathering remained to be seen at the time of going to print — though those who stood against it had as yet failed to discredit it.

Mantashe told his comrades that ill-discipline and defiance of organisational decisions have become the order of the day “because factions say so”. He added that even when the national executive committee took decisions on issues such as the timing of succession debates, “comrades [would] go ahead and pronounce on their preferred candidates”. This, he said, was not a result of misunderstanding but was aimed at “deliberately undermining the organisation”.

Mantashe’s sentiments were echoed in the public discourse led by alliance partners the SACP and Cosatu. They warned that the ANC under President Jacob Zuma has simply lost its way.

The SACP and Cosatu have to fight a different battle for relevance within the alliance structure. But their take — that there is simply no room for any other priority in light of an embedded culture of patronage, corruption and a complete lack of political will for effective governance — was illustrated by the party’s delegates during the week.

Bread-and-butter issues, a description of the socioeconomic balance of forces by unionists, including the parlous state of the economy, and the issue of inequality became wagers in factional battles.

In one commission, Zuma supporters suggested that no other ANC leader should address Cosatu gatherings. This came after the labour federation rejected Zuma earlier this year, saying it had no faith in his ability to lead. The call in the commission was undoubtedly intended to weaken the campaign of presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa, whose support is rooted in organisations such as Cosatu.

The problem for the ANC though, is that the 9.3m unemployed South Africans care little about abstract debates such as the scrapping of certain legislation or the reform of the SA Reserve Bank. For them, the immediate issue is survival. That conversation was missing in discussions, as was a bold and decisive plan for recovery that would stand the country in good stead amid global disruptions.

The SACP will sit for its own congress in a few weeks’ time. There, it will have to answer a call from some of its regions, and from Cosatu, to jump ship and contest the 2019 elections on its own.

The call itself is a clear indication of the lack of faith the ANC’S partners have in its ability to recover.

Despite many reassurances by party leaders that the party is the master of recovery, the signs point to a different reality: that the ANC has missed the opportunity to demonstrate its ability to renew itself, and that even those within it are considering a future without the once-mighty movement.