Living in the now will be the ANC’s greatest undoing

Ordinarily, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter would be the obvious item for this space, given how often his resignation has been demanded here. But the all-important ANC elective conference got under way on Friday, unleashing endless possibilities.

But first things first.

The Eskom board was correct to accept De Ruyter’s resignation. I would argue it had no other option. It couldn’t have gathered a few believers, as ANC leaders did, to convince a reluctant leader to continue in their role.

To say Eskom became worse under De Ruyter is to point out the obvious. Those who argue it would have been worse without him make an unprovable point.

While his departure won’t mean the end of load-shedding, it undoubtedly means the beginning of pulling the entity from the abyss.

It is an opportunity for board chair Mpho Makwana to appoint the right CEO, put systems in place to enable this person to succeed and set our country on a recovery path. The point isn’t to celebrate De Ruyter’s resignation, but to acknowledge that his was a false start for recovery.

We now have a real opportunity to restart. It shouldn’t matter whether the person is Mathabatha, Ndlovu or Venter. As long as they’re not De Ruyter, and possess minimum leadership skills, we will get out of the rut.

Uncomfortable as this might be, it must be stated that in spite of his incompetence, De Ruyter lasted this long at Eskom because he is a white male.

We might get chest pains about it, we might feel the need to nurse each other’s feelings (because that’s what South Africans do, especially during this reconciliation period), but avoiding stating it makes it no less true.

That said, the other person not likely to last in his position is the landlord at the Union Buildings, President Cyril Ramaphosa. Regardless of the outcome at Nasrec.

Ramaphosa is walking on eggshells. His weight inevitably sees him break whatever eggs he lands on. It’s messy.

The first big question facing the ruling party is whether Ramaphosa, of all leaders, is the person most likely to help the ANC garner the most votes in the 2024 general election.

That his main opponent in the period leading to Nasrec was another shady character implicated in corruption told a terrifying story about a turn for the worse for Africa’s oldest liberation movement.

The unavoidable question this weekend for ANC delegates and their leadership is whether they appreciate the storm that’s about to hit their party

With Ramaphosa at the helm, it is clear the ANC will lose Gauteng, whose metro councils are led by opposition parties.

The clever blacks, as former president Jacob Zuma characterised urban voters, and others tired of corruption will increasingly stop voting for the ANC which, like Zanu-PF, will hold on largely due to rural support.

But Ramaphosa, depending on the progress of various investigations into Phala Phala, will come under pressure next year.

What saved him from his resignation was taking on review the section 89 panel’s report into the matter. If this fails, he, like De Ruyter, is toast. If he succeeds, he must still survive the public protector, Hawks and South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

If he doesn’t, his comrades are going to ask him to step aside, just like former secretary-general Ace Magashule was forced to follow conference proceedings from the streets of Nasrec.

If Ramaphosa so loves the ANC, as he’s wont to remind us, he should have allowed it to choose a new, corruption-untainted leader to give the party a fresh start.

For the president right now, it’s about how long he can hold on. For the ANC, it’s about how to conduct itself in a way that endears it to people tired of poor service delivery and corruption.

Sadly, the party faithful’s conduct at the Nasrec conference on Friday was unhelpful. The opening session created an image of a party in the throes of faction fights. The change brigade appeared few but loud.

The energy channelled to fight Ramaphosa is never evident when fighting opposition parties.

When they chanted “load-shedding, step aside” while Ramaphosa was delivering his political report, you might have thought power outages started under this president. No doubt, they got worse on his watch.

But the unavoidable question this weekend for ANC delegates and their leadership is whether they appreciate the storm that’s about to hit their party.

This, you would have thought, is the opportunity to consider how to save the ANC from certain calamity in 2024. But alas. Even elders such as former president Jacob Zuma went straight into the gutter, uttering incantations about private prosecution of Ramaphosa that communicated disturbing levels of delusion rather than a need to save the ANC.

Elsewhere, others thought it was a great idea to force former KwaZulu-Natal ANC secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli to step down in favour of ANC head of elections Fikile Mbalula for the position of secretary-general of the party.

There’s no surer self-sabotage by the ANC than this. Ntuli is a breath of fresh air, intellectually superior and articulate in a manner Mbalula could never be.

But trust the ANC top brass to speak renewal, then attempt to sabotage it. Or take David Masondo, that youngish, intelligent, futuristic leader trying to be the ANC’s chair. While, like Ntuli, he is unlikely to succeed, he is exactly what the ANC needs.

Sadly, the party is focused on surviving this December, putting the conference behind it. This short termism is its greatest undoing.