Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Punish, force ANC to change
Voters hold the aces to get rid of ‘tainted’ candidates and for thugs in party ranks to be prosecuted
SHOCK! Horror! The Young Thug wing of the ANC forcibly prevented the launch of a book they did not approve of. The Sandton launch for Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s expose of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule’s dirty dealings as Free State premier had to be abandoned in the face of a bookripping crowd of threatening ANC Youth League supporters. Police stood by, either inept or complicit. With such a poorly-trained force, it is not always easy to tell the difference.
Big deal. Why is anyone surprised? This is a political environment where xenophobic attacks go unpunished, where a veiled call for genocide gets the blessing of the Human Rights Commission. Political opponents are defamed, abused and threatened, while the Independent Election Commission sits with folded hands.
The latest incident just provides more evidence of the obvious: the ANCYL and EFF share the same DNA. It is, after all, EFF leader Julius Malema, who when former president Jacob Zuma was under fire like Ace is now, threatened to “kill for Zuma”.
It is, admittedly, admirable that the old-guard ANC stalwarts have expressed disapproval over the ANCYL’s undemocratic behaviour. As a result, and with instructions from above, the Free State book-burning has been cancelled or – much like Julius’s threatened genocide – postponed, for now. As the ANC’s Free State spokesperson, Sello Pietersen, earnestly explained. “When the ANC spoke we listened.” In other words, the Constitution’s provisions on freedom of expression mean nothing, but when Luthuli House speaks, they’ll fall grumbling into line. While the book-burning is off, it’s not clear about the burning at the stake. Whether the threats to tear Myburgh from limb to limb if he dares set foot in the Free State are similarly rescinded has not been specified.
This schizophrenia – the ANC’s right hand slapping its own left wrist in feigned rebuke – is a well-worn but an effective tactic. Eventually the dissonance between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will cause a permanent rupture, but for now it works wonderfully.
It makes it possible for two ideologically incompatible but evenly matched parties, engaged in a perpetual struggle for mastery of the ANC, to co-exist under a single roof. It will continue until one bests the other, or the electorate tires of the arm-wrestling, at which point the ANC may split.
This is what makes absurd the suggestion that South Africans who have previously voted for opposition parties should “support” President Cyril Ramaphosa’s faction against former president Jacob Zuma’s faction on May 8. On the ballot there is only one ANC and it shelters not only candidates implicated in criminality, but hardline revolutionaries to oldstyle liberals.
The choice, then, is between voting for none or for all. Every vote is shared equally between those factions, and the alliance, the SACP and Cosatu. So one can delude oneself, but a “Ramaphosa” vote is equally a “Zuma” vote. The only way to influence a political party is either to join and seek to change it internally, or to indicate your disapproval by voting against it, or not at all.
It is only when the governing ANC alliance is punished at the polls that ANC behaviour will change. Only then will riotous ANCYL office-bearers be suspended, face disciplinary hearings and ejected, if found guilty.
It is only when the ANC comprehends that the electorate is not entirely composed of gullible fools, that corrupt and disgraced candidates will no longer appear on ANC electoral lists, and the partisan behaviour of the SAPS will no longer be tolerated.
AUTHOR and journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh, who implicated ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule in alleged systematic state corruption in the Free State, has accused him of influencing media coverage while he was premier. Myburgh, who’s book, Gangster
State, was published recently, addressed a question and answer session at the Cape Town Press Club yesterday.
He said Magashule made sure some media houses which reported on his corruption dealings were shut down.
“In the Free State, the media environment was deliberately taken over by Magashule to ensure there weren’t any negative reporting about him. This was more in the English medium publications,” he said.
“There were media houses who did well because they did not feed into the political discourse they are publishing. There were two publications, Free State Times and the Weekly, the Times was a critical voice of Magashule’s government. They got to the core of some of his corrupt dealings.”
He explained the two media houses exposed government contracts and deals implicating Magashule in 2011.
“Magashule, what he did was to centralise the province’s entire media budget. He (would) capture the budgets and bring them into the office of the premier and close the budget resulting in the newspaper dying a very slow death,” said Myburgh.
He further claimed the private sector was also reeled in and told not to advertise with publications which reported on Magashule’s dealings.
“They stopped advertising with these papers. Private companies were getting phone calls from Magashule’s associates in government saying that they should not advertise in these newspapers and these corporates did business with the government. They had concerns about their business,” he said.
The book has been met with outrage by the ruling party. On Tuesday, Exclusive Books in Sandton City, Joburg, had to cancel the launch after a group of people, some wearing ANC T-shirts, stormed the venue. Police were called while the author fled, fearing for his life.
Meanwhile, the ANC Youth League has vowed to burn more copies.
The ANC has declined to comment on the allegations, saying Magashule was pursuing a legal matter in his personal capacity.
Meanwhile, speaking through his spokesperson Mbali Hlophe, Magashule yesterday said the allegations were false, saying “it takes a mere google search to know that the media has always been critical of him”.
In Myburgh’s book, the ANC’s Top Six are also alleged to have pocketed R230 million in kickbacks on an asbestos deal.