The ANC’s exile toxins bleed into the body politic and prime it for a new split

By accident or design, in his testimony before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture and corruption, former president Jacob Zuma lit the touchpaper of greater fractionalisation within the ANC. Already, there are faint rumblings that such a rift may be a continuance of the tension around the disbanding of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the early 1990s and subsequent efforts to silence dissenting voices within the ANC. More on this below. What does seem clearer, nonetheless, is that Zuma could be hoist with his own petard.

With his testimony he has introduced greater uncertainty into an intensely fractious South African society.

Circling the conflict are those in revolutionary red costumes, waiting for the waves of cadaverine and putrescine from political corpses that will fall after Zuma’s poison has fully seeped throughout South African politics.

Some of the more respectable voices have been quite scathing of his claims, accusations, assertions about spies on the run within the ANC, and what seemed like wilful obfuscation during his testimony.

The former president’s testimony opened up the snake pit of espionage and counter-espionage claims that marked the ANC in exile, especially during the period when he was head of intelligence.

In his testimony before the Zondo commission, the former president made startling claims against some of his colleagues, specifically naming former cabinet ministers Siphiwe Nyanda and Ngoako Ramatlhodi as being former apartheid spies.

Liberation movements in exile are notoriously riven with distrust, violence and paranoia. As soon as Zuma named Ramatlhodi and Nyanda, countercharges were circulated about Zuma’s own (alleged) collaboration with the apartheid security establishment.

We can’t say with absolute certainty what will happen next, but the immediate impact of the former president’s assertions, claims and accusations could split the ANC.

Such a split would not be the much-speculated divide between the ANC and the SACP or Cosatu. On the surface, this split is between constitutionalists and loyal cadres. Rhetorically, the split is replicated as a pro-Zuma and a pro-Ramaphosa faction.

In more radical populist discourse it is condemned as a clash between protectors of “white monopoly capital” and a “radical economic transformation” faction.

Amid these bifurcations are tensions over an “Indian cabal” that has too prominent a role in the state and policymaking. Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu have most recently used allegations of an “Indian cabal” with apparently too much

influence in the government and political economic matters, but there are distinct echoes of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s gaslighting of people of Indian heritage (in the UDF) during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.

Nonetheless, the battle between the constitutionalists and the cadres is essentially about the primacy of the ANC, loyalty to its leaders and members — a type of closing of ranks — and adherence to the constitution and the rule of law.

This was affirmed most recently by ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, widely considered to be first in line among the proZuma cadres.

On May 10, Magashule warned incoming cabinet ministers of the sixth administration not to act on the basis of their conscience, but on instructions of the ANC.

Magashule’s statement is consistent with that of Zuma, who insisted, before and after the ANC’s 50th national conference at Mahikeng in December 1997, that cadres had to remain “informed by and accountable to” party leadership only.

Significantly, still in Mahikeng in 1997, Nelson Mandela himself sought to silence any criticism of the ANC that may have emanated from former members and leaders of the UDF, which had been re-imagined, albeit rather tentatively, as a type of NGO, and a watchdog on the government.

Back to Zuma’s testimony this week. It is clear, from the transcripts, that Zuma’s testimony sought, at the outset, to undermine the legitimacy of the commission — trying hard to fake sincerity — while following the pattern of organised criminal or espionage groups: admit nothing, deny everything and deflect blame.

The key for Zuma was to project himself as the victim of an elaborate plot, dating back to the early 1990s, to keep him from gaining or retaining political power.

Whatever blowback there may be as a result of Zuma’s claims, and depending on the names on his “list” — presumably of spies and collaborators — playing spy games in a fractious society, with a red-dressed murder of crows circling and a green, black and gold wake of buzzards waiting to feast off carrion, the former president may become the biggest loser.

In the end, the spy games are between defenders of the status quo (of corruption, looting, state capture and loyalty to the party), and the reformers, who accept the constitution of SA as the ultimate arbiter of society.

Much like the “threat” that the UDF was to the ANC — in terms of accountability — the constitutionalists want to keep the liberation movement in government in check.