S’THEMBISO MSOMI | Change of leadership unlikely in ANC despite whispering campaign

As the Nelson Mandela ANC presidency ended, the party’s 1997 national conference — held in Mahikeng, North West — introduced structural reforms to better align the organisation with the realities of being in government.

One of those changes was extending the term of office of the national executive committee (NEC) from three to five years.

The conference also decided that, halfway through the NEC’s term, a national general council (NGC) should be convened to review the progress made in implementing past conference resolutions and discuss fresh policy proposals.

Because NGCs do not have the power to change leaders, it was envisaged such gatherings would allow ANC delegates to openly debate ideas about how to take the party and the country forward without the populist posturing often accompanying elective conferences.

But this objective has mostly not been met. Different factions in the party tend to see the NGCs as the first national platforms through which they can test their power and popularity ahead of the next elective conference — which usually takes place two years later.

In 2005, for instance, Jacob Zuma’s supporters used that year’s NGC to catapult him to the front of the presidential race.

Five years later, when Zuma was in charge of both Luthuli House and the Union Buildings, his ANC detractors used the debate over “nationalising the mines” to test their strength against him — and lost.

In 2015, as Zuma’s grip on power was loosening, “radical economic transformation” and “white monopoly capital” were the concepts hotly debated at that year’s NGC as proxies for the looming leadership succession battle.

The situation is unlikely to be any different when 1,650 delegates from 750 branches assemble at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg tomorrow for this year’s gathering.

In the weeks leading up to the four-day event, there has been a whispering campaign aimed at planting in the minds of delegates the idea of an early change in leadership. Rumours of President Cyril Ramaphosa contemplating leaving office soon after the recent G20 summit were followed by ones — quoting anonymous ANC sources — alleging an NEC plot to have him removed early.

In the weeks leading up to the four-day event, there has been a whispering campaign aimed at planting in the minds of delegates the idea of an early change in leadership. Rumours of President Cyril Ramaphosa contemplating leaving office soon after the recent G20 summit were followed by ones — quoting anonymous ANC sources — alleging an NEC plot to have him removed early.

All these have been denied by the party, but the president seems to have taken the rumour-mongering seriously. At one of the most recent leadership meetings, he is said to have challenged his detractors to openly confront him if they want him gone.

In one of the discussion documents compiled in response to the official NGC base document outlining issues to be discussed next week, the authors call on the current NEC to convene a special national conference that would presumably have the power to replace the current leadership.

“The leadership quality at various levels has declined, [and] in many respects the organisation is leaderless and rudderless. The most pernicious reality with which we must contend is that the current NEC lacks appetite and commitment for the genuine renewal of the movement. Hence, we are facing a real threat of a defeat,” charge the authors of a document titled “An Analysis and Critique of the ANC 5th National General Council Base Document”.

Another discussion paper, titled “The Fall and Continued Fall of the ANC”, argues that the party “has been weakened by the worst leadership” and agitates for passing a vote of no confidence in Ramaphosa and the NEC. “The NGC should install an interim governing committee and confer upon it the constitutional responsibilities that would generally be [those] of the NEC,” it says.

However, the proposals in the two documents are unlikely to carry the day because — faced with the prospect of losing even more electoral support in next year’s local government polls — the inclination of most party structures is to close ranks.

In 2000, at its first NGC held in Port Elizabeth, the ANC adopted key policy changes that had far-reaching consequences for both the party and the country. Perhaps the most contentious of these was the idea the ANC would aggressively deploy “agents of change” at various levels of the civil service.

By the next NGC, held at the University of Pretoria in 2005, delegates rejected most of the reforms proposed to modernise the party. These included a move away from exclusively ward-based branches to those incorporating professional structures. The mooted changes would have allowed individuals to join wards on the basis of common professional and academic interests, rather than purely on where they lived.

ANC branches objected, fearing then-president Thabo Mbeki and his associates were turning the party into “an elitist” organisation and trying to frustrate Zuma’s rise to power. In the years that followed, the party saw professionals and other members of the black middle class turning their backs on the ANC.

Now, 20 years later, one of the proposals in the base document prepared for this week’s discussions is for the ANC to establish professional branches.

“Renewal must entail finding new ways of organising the middle strata. Traditional ANC branch activities may not appeal to busy professionals or entrepreneurs … We might need flexible forums … to draw them in. For instance, [we might need] an ANC professionals forum, or business forum, where those in the middle strata can discuss policy ideas and feel their voices [are] heard,” the document says.

But perhaps the one issue that may be thorny for Ramaphosa and the NEC at the gathering is their decision to form a government of national unity (GNU) including the DA and other political parties said to be on the right of the political spectrum.

This week’s gathering is the first national meeting since the party’s poor showing at the polls forced it into a coalition with the DA.

In the base document, the party continues to argue it invited all parties to be part of the coalition, but some refused to join without certain conditions being met. It then says the current arrangement should be seen as representing “unity and [a] struggle of opposites” — entailing both risks and opportunities.

“The goal remains to restore the ANC to majority status … This does not require hostility to the GNU, but rather a clear-eyed assessment of its limits.”

But some branches and regional structures are not convinced, saying the ANC should have chosen to share power with “black parties” such as the EFF and the MK Party because they have “more in common” with them than the DA.

However, it is unlikely criticism of the current arrangement will lead to Ramaphosa being forced to dissolve the GNU.