Blade on the block as alliance tensions seep into the open
Emboldened by the waning of the communists’ star in government, even newly minted provincial leaders feel free to publicly snub senior alliance partners, writes Piet Rampedi
THE infantile snubbing of the SACP’s national chairman, Senzeni Zokwana, by newly elected ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairman Sihle Zikalala could be dismissed as too much political testosterone or inflated egos — or perhaps short-man syndrome.
But there’s more to the affront given by the victorious Zikalala, who walked on to the stage to greet and hug senior ANC leaders but refused to shake Zokwana’s hand.
It points to the intensity of another ugly tug-of-war between the communists and their ANC comrades, another ideological war of attrition or battle for, as the cliché has it, the soul of the ANC.
Zokwana is no ordinary communist. He is chairman of the SACP, the minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and sits on the ANC’s second-highest decision-making body, the national executive committee.
Zokwana’s powerful positions tell you how influential the communists are in the ANC government. Their influence on policy is profound: it is the communists who are indirectly responsible for the proposed national health insurance, the National Development Plan (even though they initially pushed for Soviet-style central planning), the policy on blacklisting and debt relief, and the splitting of education into basic and higher education ministries.
And Zikalala’s behaviour tells you that the communists’ influence, especially the power vested in their leader, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, is waning.
Nzimande — who has led the party for 17 years — used to wield disproportional power in the ANC led alliance, and had the president’s ear. He was a key member of a factional lobby that successfully got rid of former president Thabo Mbeki and propelled their beloved Msholozi to power.
Mbeki couldn’t stand him, publicly describing him as “extraordinarily arrogant”.
Nzimande and his fellow communists were rewarded with key positions in the ANC and in Zuma’s government.
Almost the entire SACP politburo — its senior operational organ — and several of its central committee members were in Zuma’s national executive (of ministers and deputy ministers) in 2009. Add a premier and several MECs to the list of communists in the government.
This emboldened Nzimande to believe they were co-governing South Africa with the ANC, a delusion that peeved Zuma.
Nzimande boasted that the tripartite alliance, not the ANC, was the strategic centre of power, prompting ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe to remind him the ANC remains the pillar of power.
Nzimande rebuked ANC leaders whose views contradicted SACP positions, and castigated those threatening the communists’ influence, such as EFF leader Julius Malema. Recently, he accused the so-called premier league — David Mabuza of Mpumalanga, Ace Magashule of the Free State and Supra Mahumapelo of North West — of using money to capture ANC structures ahead of the party’s 2017 elective conference.
That accusation angered some ANC leaders, including Zikalala, who is perceived to be a silent member of the league.
The league wants AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to become ANC president, effectively pitting her against Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa for the job. That is, if Ramaphosa decides to fight what could be another ferocious succession contest.
However, it seems Nzimande and his communists are weakening.
Apart from Zikalala’s antics last weekend, ANC Youth League president Collen Maine has been calling for Nzimande’s dismissal as minister.
The last time any youth leader dared to attack Nzimande was at the height of Malema’s leadership of the youth league, and it indirectly cost Malema his career in the ANC.
Maine said Nzimande was “part of the problem” in relation to the ongoing student fees protests. Much to the anger of the SACP, he called on youth league members to march to Nzimande’s house.
The SACP’s second deputy general secretary, Solly Mapaila, accused unnamed senior ANC leaders of using “these ANC Youth League boys” to insult Nzimande in order to weaken him politically. They were, he said, conniving to get rid of Nzimande.
“The factionalists, the groupings that are fighting us now are in cabinet,” he said.
Mapaila dismissed Maine as a useful tool. “Maine is just a loudhailer. He doesn’t sit down and plan these things,” Mapaila said, adding that the SACP would act against Maine and his youth league “boys” if Luthuli House did not call them to order.
Unlike in the past when the ANC was quick to release statements defending Nzimande, there has been only silence.
Maine was unrepentant , dismissing Mapaila as being bankrolled by Nzimande to insult him. “If we are loud-hailing, we are loud-hailing in the best interest of the students. We will march to Blade’s house. We can’t be intimidated,” Maine said.
Adding to the communists’ headache is that they are being gradually shafted from Zuma’s national executive.
The remaining communists in government, such as Deputy Minister in the Presidency Buti Man- amela, Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi and his deputy, Jeremy Cronin, have been toeing the ANC line. Nxesi has steadfastly defended Nkandla, while Manamela often sounds more like an ANC leader than the hardened communist he once was.
In provinces such as Mpumalanga, the SACP has been reduced to a disgruntled political spectator, shouting from the margins.
Political analyst Professor Lesiba Teffo of Unisa agrees that Nzimande’s power is fading. He says his downfall must be seen in the context of the alliance’s irrelevance. “I think his standing in society has taken a serious knock and his influence in the tripartite alliance is weakening. I think there’s a conscious effort to weaken him further,” he said.
Teffo said Nzimande’s downfall has been that the SACP leader tended to talk more about the ANC and that “his utterances tend to alienate” ANC members and voters.
He said Nzimande’s record of using his influence to get more SACP leaders into government might have also contributed to his downfall.
“In my view, that also alienated some of the diehard ANC members who might have felt ostracised and overlooked for positions, and some of them might have felt that ideologically, we are [at variance] and we can’t pretend any more.”
Zokwana’s humiliation by Zikalala was no fluke. Zokwana is a proxy in the war against the communists.
His standing in society has taken a serious knock . . . I think there’s a conscious effort to weaken him further We are loudhailing in the best interest of the students. We will march to Blade’s house. We can’t be intimidated