Brown Mogotsi has permanently changed how the public views the annual ANC January 8 celebrations.
When the dominant party’s social media team published a digital poster last week promoting the mass rally that would be held in the village of Moruleng, near the Pilanesberg National Park in North West, as part of this year’s ANC birthday celebrations, a Facebook respondent reacted:
“Who is the sponsor [because] the ANC blesser [Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala] is in jail?”
On ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s Facebook page yesterday morning, one of the followers asked, after seeing the digital poster, “Since it will be held in his home province of North West, will Brown Mogotsi still ask Cat Matlala for sponsorship?”
Ever since KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen “Lucky” Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s explosive July 6 press conference, it has been almost impossible to discuss the ANC’s annual celebrations without reference to the attempted murder case involving alleged underworld figure Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and to Brown Mogotsi, whom Matlala now describes as a con man.
Among other revelations on July 6, Mkhwanazi stated that now-on-leave police minister Senzo Mchunu controversially ordered the disbandment of the political killings task team around the same time that Mogotsi — an associate of the minister — was soliciting money from Matlala to pay for food, flights and accommodation for “delegates” attending last year’s edition of the event in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
Subsequent evidence presented to the Madlanga commission by the police — and confirmed by Matlala himself at the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating issues raised by Mkhwanazi — suggests that the alleged crime boss paid between R150,000 and R200,000 to Mogotsi in return for what he believed would be political protection by the minister.
That Mogotsi’s scheme, which Mchunu has strenuously denied knowledge of, directly involved January 8 is a major blow to a troubled ANC that is desperately trying to convince a sceptical electorate it is currently on a long march to “renewal”.
For much of the past five decades, the former national liberation movement has used the occasion of its birthday to outline the organisation’s programme for the year and position itself as “the leader of society”.
The first ever January 8 statement was issued in exile in 1972 to mark the party’s 60th anniversary. This, however, was followed by a seven-year hiatus.
The first ever January 8 statement was issued in exile in 1972 to mark the party’s 60th anniversary. This, however, was followed by a seven-year hiatus.
The tradition was to be revived in 1979, which the ANC had dubbed “The Year of the Spear”, to coincide with the escalation of the armed struggle within the borders of apartheid South Africa.
Since then, a statement has been issued every year. Throughout the 1980s, ANC followers, sympathisers and enemies alike would listen to the underground Radio Freedom to hear what the vision and programme for the year would be. The more popular statements, like the 1985 one calling on the youth to “render South Africa ungovernable”, would be recorded and distributed as cassette tapes to activists all over the country.
In the democratic era, with the ANC by far the most influential political party, January 8 became an important date on the national political calendar. Although officially the political year began in February with the opening of parliament and the delivery of the state of the nation address by the president, it was generally not in dispute that the January 8 statement would set the tone.
Major private sector companies, especially the ones operating in regulated industries such as mining and telecommunications, would pay big bucks for seats at the annual gala dinner that is usually held the night before the official release of the statement.
In such settings, representatives of industry not only hoped to understand how any proposed measure in the statement would affect their business operations once made government policy, but also hoped that direct access to ministers would still help them influence how such policies are implemented.
Besides the fundraising gala dinners, the January 8 festivities became synonymous with bashes at high-end nightclubs where the most expensive Scotch flowed and the air was filled with the alluring smell of Cuban cigars. The January 8 weeks were, for the comrades, an extension of the festive season.
With ministers, corporate executives, senior civil servants and other components of the country’s elite in town, where you stayed mattered. Hence, for those with not-deep-enough pockets such as Mogotsi, “fundraising” from the likes of Matlala — eager for access to the political elite — was essential. This year’s festivities are unlikely to be different. The party may have chosen a small stadium in a tiny village, but that does not mean the week-long celebrations in nearby towns such as Rustenburg or entertainment centres such as Sun City will be subdued.
For President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC’s national executive committee, this year’s January 8 presents a special challenge. Since 1994, it has become an accepted practice in the ANC that, in an election year, the January 8 statement is used as the soft launch for the party’s election campaign. Usually, much of what is contained in the statement ends up being a big part of the ANC’s campaign.
If the party sticks to this approach, expect next weekend’s statement to be dominated by local government issues, with Luthuli House pledging to change its selection procedure to ensure that only “the most capable” candidates are chosen to fix many of the municipalities that are in near collapse across the country.
It would most likely even mention a process leading up to the announcement of the party’s mayoral candidates in the metros — a big break from the past practice of only announcing mayoral candidates after the actual elections.
But how much of that would be convincing enough to an electorate that — despite protestations from the party that it is not corrupt but individual members are — has come to see the party as being at the very centre of the rot?
More fundamentally, there is a growing belief — even from within the party structures — that the ANC has run out of ideas on how to rescue South Africa from crises.
Speaking at the funeral of his former political adviser Titus Mofolo last month, former president Thabo Mbeki — who sits on the NEC as an ex officio member — made what can be described as a damning statement about the current leadership.
“The ANC is in problems, serious problems. South Africa is in serious problems. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know where South Africa will be tomorrow. Where are we going? How are we going to solve all of these problems, whether it is crime, unemployment, this and that and the other.”
In its 1986 January 8 statement, the NEC described the government of then apartheid president PW Botha as follows: “The Botha regime has lost the strategic initiative… The racist regime has no policy and can have no policy either to save the apartheid system from sinking deeper into crisis or to extricate this system from that crisis. Its political programme has been reduced to shambles. Its ideological platform has collapsed. All it can do now is to react to events from day to day, without any consistent plan and without overall objectives, except to keep itself in power for as long as possible.”
Remove references to Botha, the racist regime and apartheid, and the statement could easily be mistaken for one that refers to the current state of affairs.
Hence, if Ramaphosa and his team hope to have a fighting chance this year, the January 8 statement next weekend will have to go far beyond the usual. It will have to answer the question: where are we going?
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