A move to a new chapter for the ANC

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WHEN Gwede Mantashe took over as the ANC’S secretarygeneral at the party’s

53rd national elective conference in Limpopo in 2007, he was an enigma.

This is because the heated battle was fought mainly between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma as the main attraction, and anything else was a supporting act.

So, Gwede sneaked through almost unnoticed by the public, save for most in the ANC who knew him. A stout, bearded man with no regard for fashionable appearances. An unconventional figure cut out from the loins of the mining struggles and bruised by the mine dust. The desolate plains of mines have shaped his outlook and the proletariat environs became his second nature.

In many ways he betrays the figure of a peasant or a rebel with both feet in the Marxist thought and the rural environment. Strangely, Gwede is a self-professed republican to the hilt. A Marxist, a republican, a trade unionist-turned-administrator and a cattle farmer can be many appellations for one man, hence the strangeness of being a Gwede. After all his name and surname sound Scottish.

When he thundered into the national political space he broke all normative customs associated with the high office. He was an unrepentant Communist, an unconventional character and one whose voice was difficult to comprehend. More often than not he spoke to himself rather than to his audience. He spoke both with authority and with some selfassurance that most viewed with a sneer of doubt. He was difficult to decipher and journalists struggled to put him in a specific profile category. His ease of character soon gained him a following among the throngs of the Fourth Estate.

Unlike his predecessor, Kgalema Motlanthe, who was an urban figure boasting a goatee and measured in all conceivable accounts and whose tenure was uneventful as he survived placidly in a great measure. Motlanthe was a serious type with rare occasions of hilarity. In cases of hilarity it was an occasion of relaying good tidings. He was professorial in outlook and oversaw the affairs of the ANC with great care and fortitude. Mkhuluwa (elder), as he came to be known, was noncommittal and somewhat of a closed book.

Diplomatic in outlook with pastoral mannerisms, Motlanthe oversaw the affairs of the ANC with little tumult, given the general organisational state of affairs that prevailed at that time, save the

Aids debacle which was more of a government headache.

On the other hand, Gwede was his own person soaked from his own ink. He has a leisurely walk and saunters about with ease.

Unlike Motlanthe, Gwede is a jolly fellow with an unprovoked and instantaneous sense of humour. He always has something to say and often takes you by a tangent angle – a Mandela trademark that has become second nature to him.

Gwede observes few if any protocols. He still dons the grey halfjacket made famous by journalists in the 1980s. Journalists found this grey half-jacket useful for their material, including reels of films. Gwede’s reading spectacles hang over his broad chest with a bead lace in ANC colours.

Over time we got used to his voice and became familiar with his face and we soon regarded him as an affable fellow, after all. The political turbulence that graced his second tenure with increased oppositional bellicose put his character to the full test. The many press briefings that followed the many special national executive committee meetings, where difficult resolutions had to be announced, made him a bearer of bad news. It was at this stage that he reinvented himself.

On the occasion of his 60th birthday party in 2016, his alter ego, Enoch Godongwana, spoke in glowing terms about his childhood friend who had the ambition of being a university lecturer. Frans Baleni related a story where Gwede had attended a computer course and came back to the office excited that he has learnt how to use a mouse. He told people in the office that there is a difference between mice (impuku) and a mouse, referring to the computer clicker that controls a cursor. Over time he embraced education and graduated with a Master’s degree.

Unlike both Motlanthe and Gwede, Ace Magashule is pulled from a different wood stock. He is not a trade unionist nor is he a Communist; in fact he was a professional teacher, to wit.

He was schooled in civic politics in his home town of Tumahole,

Parys, where he came under the political tutelage of Fezile “Madlebe” Dabi. The mass democratic struggles spearheaded by the United Democratic Front were his political kindergarten. He can best be classified as a street fighter, a mass agitator and a mass mobiliser.

Ace may not fit the straightjacket of an administrator, a role that Gwede settled into. Ace will spend more time in provinces and regions of the ANC, seeking to soil his hands in the resolution of their organisational challenges, than in the sixth floor offices at Luthuli House.

As the SG, he has an onerous task as the voice and face of the organisation at a critical juncture in its history. The national stage of being an SG is far greater and far more complex than any that he has handled. The youthful enthusiasm that he brings is a welcome relief but more fortitude and circumspection will be demanded.

Streamlining the operations of the office and those of the many subcommittees of the NEC will prove a daunting task. Giving interviews on a whole range of policy issues will come thick and fast with the obligations of the office. Statements uttered will be scrutinised and analysed for any signs of deviations and policy inconsistencies. The leadership fights in provinces will be put on his doorstep. The true value of the national working committee will come in handy in this regard, given the vast organisational experience that resides in that structure.

The new SG must stamp his own brand of leadership style and authority over the organisation’s affairs. In all of this, greater authority must be exerted, especially in preparing the ANC for the 2019 national elections.

Professor Kwesi Prah authored a book, Between Extinction and Distinction. Ace has a historical task, as did the Rev James Calata in the 1940s, to take the ANC to distinction. He is the third leader from the Free State to hold a powerful national position, after the Rev ZR Mahabane and Dr James Moroka, both former ANC presidents.

Ka Plaatjie is adviser to Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.