The fierce contest to determine who will be the first citizen of the national capital city has begun. It is symptomatic of the pending succession battles in several, if not all, political parties. It is not only the position of the mayor of Tshwane that is at stake, but also the resilience of the GNU, an ANC-led coalition to renew South Africa. At play is an indifferent cohort of ANC activists determined to optimise ANC hegemony over the foundational principles of the GNU.
It is no secret that the ANC's heritage of democratic centralism and toeing the party line sustains the GNU. The centrality of the political power transferred to the people in 1994 is the ultimate prize pursued by the ANC, despite the ideological inconvenience of flirting with a leader of the opposition complex and a threat to its century-old hegemonic hold as the torch bearer of South Africa's liberation. The Tshwane mayor battle will stress test the coalition arrangement.
With less than 35% of the votes in the 2024 Gauteng provincial elections, a fragile ANC-led national coalition and an intricate balance of forces in Tshwane, the political pressure to announce the next mayor has shifted to the ANC's NEC, its highest decision-making body. The fragility of the Tshwane ANC support base, given the previous Thoko-Didization of the municipal elections, and a brazen attempt by the ANC's provincial executive committee (PEC) to seize the right to interpret the GNU statement of principles, makes the succession battle for the ANC presidency vulnerable.
The Tshwane standoff within the ANC, despite denials, is the tip of an enormous iceberg. The issue is the 52 regions of the ANC due for elective conferences. The stability of the provincial centres of the ANC is inextricably linked to the outcomes of regional conferences. There will thus be pressure on PECs to align with the interests of regional political exigencies as political capital to be cashed in. The spectre of political instability looms in the whirlpool of an ANC renewal process and efforts to regain public trust, along with a fierce struggle to come back to the centre by those linked to corruption and state capture.
There is also a dynamic of MK Party sleepers within regions of the ANC, who might trigger a mass exodus of authentic activists away from the ANC if the regional balance of power dynamics are not properly managed. Previously, in situations similar to Tshwane, the ANC would by now have made the call on who the next mayor should be. The question is why there is reluctance when the reputational costs of removing the Tshwane mayor are on such an exponential growth trajectory.
The ANC's conduct on this matter is laying a foundation for it becoming a profoundly federal organisation, with a constellation of 52 regions growing in independence. The Tshwane episode exposes how ANC structures, despite their unitary organisation rhetoric, differ on understanding what the centre has determined and on local versus national interests.
The ANC's conduct on this matter is laying a foundation for it becoming a profoundly federal organisation, with a constellation of 52 regions growing in independence
The extortion associated with the power regions have during provincial and national conferences makes the tolerance level of dysfunction in regional structures of the ANC and, by default, local government, higher than should be acceptable.
It is crucial to revisit the rule by branches - most of questionable integrity - as it could be used against the centre's ability to exercise discipline and control once national interest-defined decisions are made. The rise of democratisation as a trend is shaping the world, and South Africa is experiencing the dividend of having no absolute governing power. However, the democratisation of anarchy might be a fundamental and terrifying feature the ANC has to deal with.
The decision to remove the mayor in Tshwane erodes the foundations of the ANC's proven strength to hold the country together when it needs a breakthrough. The sheer delay in announcing a new mayor, and bickering with ActionSA, cannot be matched with the work of maintaining the brittle GNU it is leading. The rise in investor and public confidence indicates the correctness of the GNU call.
The Gauteng resolve on reconfiguring the form and character of coalitions in the province should display more societal interest than being an axis of political point scoring. The brute truth is that South Africa's liberation promise is about the freedom of “we the people” from arbitrary authority, essentially from the brute power of the state and, more acutely, the prerogatives of politicians.
• Mathebula is a public policy analyst, founder of The Thinc Foundation and a research associate at Tshwane University of Technology
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