ANC, show us your true colours
THE INTEREST in this year’s ANC elective conference is unprecedented. There’s a reason for this: The stakes have never been higher, nor the ruling party as profoundly fractured as it is now.
We have a president who could potentially find himself immensely vulnerable and facing corruption charges should his preferred candidate not win.
We have anti-Jacob Zuma factions hell-bent on dislodging him, a tripartite alliance being anything but and the continuous drip-feed of incredibly damaging revelations of state capture.
The Gupta-leaks remain unanswered and resolutely uninvestigated, when in truth they paint a picture that eclipses any and all corruption that has been reported on before.
They are a smouldering taper edging ever closer to the tinderbox that is a nation of simmering discontent.
The ANC’s national policy conference last week was supposed to have been called to formulate a way out of this morass, giving hope and direction not just to the party faithful.
Instead, it was subsumed by the elephant in the room – who takes over the party, and by inference the Union Buildings, come December.
There are no easy solutions to this, but a real start would be an end to the party prohibition on members declaring their intentions and ambitions.
It is common knowledge that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to become president when the time comes around. It is as wellknown that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has Zuma’s backing to replace him – and thwart Ramaphosa’s ambitions.
Amid this contest, emerges a host of other contenders; some stalking horses to test public opinion, others dark horses with real prospects.
The result is fever-pitch politicking behind the scenes, rampant backstabbing and an inordinate amount of energy – all officially denied – expended on what could well be a moot point if the country is not governed between now and December.
The ANC, as the continent’s oldest liberation movement with the proudest history, needs to drop this ridiculous pretence of unity and let the politicking rather be done in the open, so that no one is in any doubt.
Frankly, the country deserves better.