Forget an early conference, just go back to basics
Future of the ruling party at mercy of ’charlatans’ with no respect for internal democracy, writes Mathole Motshekga
IN the past weeks there have been many voices calling for an early elective conference, while others have called for a consultative conference. There are also voices calling on the president and the entire national executive committee to step down.
It is beyond question that the ANC faces a crisis exacerbated by the loss of three metros and failure to achieve an outright majority in many other municipalities. Above all, the reduction of national electoral support from 63% to 54% was a rude awakening that in 2019 party support could fall below 50%.
The party’s supporters withheld their votes for several reasons, including social distance, factional fights, poor service delivery, ill-informed demarcation of municipal areas, corruption, and Gupta- and Nkandlagate.
The greatest threat to the ANC and the country is factionalism. The party has been captured by a faction that has no capacity to lead government and society — and has no respect for internal democracy. This faction wants to strengthen its grip on power by holding an early conference, which will be used to wipe out all independent voices and entrench so-called collective responsibility.
The principle of collective responsibility is good and has been a guiding principle of the party from its inception. But this principle has been corrupted by the slate politics that have replaced the collective with a faction.
The dominant faction in the organisation are kingmakers. They decide on leadership positions at all levels. Leadership collectives installed by factions carry out the will of those factions, not of the organisation and society. The resulting social distance opened the door for charlatans to masquerade as people’s leaders.
The leadership collectives are held hostage by factions, and are thus incapable of providing principled leadership, defending unity or preserving the organisation’s integrity. This leadership failure manifested itself in the neglect and/or failure of the organisation to enforce its own constitution and decisions.
It is a trite rule in the party that all national conferences are preceded by policy conferences. The clarification of policies enables the general membership to identify the members who have the capacity to implement such policies. The national policy conferences were therefore followed by a nomination process that started in the branch general meetings.
An alien culture has emerged that allows individuals in the leadership collectives to develop slates and open-nomination processes. Some individuals in the leadership collective create war chests and lead their own election campaigns. All this happens under the watch of the officials and the national executive committee because they are all held hostage by the dominant faction.
Many comrades came forward with evidence that during some conferences votes were bought; some individuals were found distributing money to delegates and entertaining them in hotels. Attempts were also made to capture civil society organisations through money.
Both the alliance summit and party decided to sharpen the ANC integrity commission’s teeth, referring these matters — and, in particular, the so-called premier league — to the commission for investigation. These decisions were not implemented because the dominant faction is holding the leadership collective hostage.
In these circumstances can we talk about genuine collective responsibility? Leadership collectives must take objective decisions that are informed by the inputs of members, not the diktats of dominant factions, calling themselves the collective. After all, before a collective decision is made, individual members must make inputs based on their political consciousness.
Thus collective responsibility must be informed by the political consciousness and responsibility of every member of the collective. The bickering in the party, and between the party and its alliance partners, shows that the collective responsibility we claim is not rooted in our organisational culture or internal democracy.
The party has distanced itself from its revolutionary morality, values and principles. It is this loss of a moral compass that alienated the people from the party. Fortunately, the people did not reject the party and vote for the opposition, they merely withheld their votes to give the party an opportunity to reflect and take corrective steps before the 2019 national elections.
The party does not need an early elective or consultative conference to renew itself.
All that is required is that the current leadership enforces the constitution, resolutions and decisions of the organisation and returns it to the people as a coherent organisation.
And this organisational coherence can be achieved by the restoration of the principle of democratic centralism.
The leadership should not run away from its responsibility by calling for an early elective or consultative conference. It must regenerate itself by making an audit of all decisions taken to address its internal ills — and enforce those decisions without fear or favour — to ensure it regains the confidence and loyalty of its members and society.
The party has been captured by a faction that has no capacity to lead government