Warning bells for ANC

Unless the ANC sets its own house in order, it will continue to be beset by forces opposed to change. M. S. PRABHAKARA on the travails of South Africa's ruling party.

THE RATHER unusual statement issued by Mr. Jacob Zuma, Deputy President of the African National Congress (and of the country), on April 3 continues to make ripples, raising more questions than answering them. Mr. Zuma discounted in that statement ``rumours and unverified so-called intelligence reports'' suggesting that he might stand for ANC President during the party's next national conference. He also went on to affirm his loyalty to the President, Mrs. Thabo Mbeki, expressing his admiration for Mr. Mbeki's leadership. ``He (Mr. Mbeki) has a profound understanding of the movement, has provided excellent leadership to South Africa during its most trying times, and continues to do so. He has my unqualified support as the President of both the ANC and the country,'' Mr. Zuma said.

The `rumoured' scenario which Mr. Zuma was discounting, which were it to materialise would be perfectly legitimate in terms of the ANC's own Constitution, is nowhere on the horizon. The ANC's next national conference, where such changes in the leadership as are seen necessary will be made, is due only towards the end of 2002. That Mr. Zuma nevertheless thought it necessary to refute such ``rumours'' is just one indication of the way the media in this country increasingly seems to be dictating the political agenda.

Naturally, the statement has provided additional grist to the mill of the very same ``rumours'' that Mr. Zuma sought to discount and refute. Mr. Zuma is now rather in the position of the protagonist in numerous versions of the pithy Indian folk tale who affirms his innocence even when it is not questioned but rather is challenged in an entirely unrelated context.

Openly waged struggles for leading position within the ANC are an integral part of the organisation's political culture. Unlike the Indian National Congress which superficially it resembles, including in being a home for the widest spectrum of political thinking from the Right to the Left, the ANC has never had a culture of seeking ``consensus''. Leadership positions are openly contested at local, provincial and national levels, with the results published. There is little of the kind of hypocrisy that disavows political ambitions even when desperately manoeuvring to seek high political office.

So, why did Mr. Zuma, Number Two both in the organisation and the Government, think t it necessary to refute such ``rumours''? After all, Mr. Mbeki was in the same position vis a vis Mr. Nelson Mandela, succeeding him as ANC President in December 1997 and as President of the country in June 1999. One can even argue that the media, in speculating or even in spreading such ``rumours'', is only performing its normal task. The difference, however, is the vicious hostility of much of the media towards Mr. Mbeki; and the not unjustified perception in the ANC that it is pursuing an agenda of de-legitimising, even criminalising not so much Mr. Mbeki, not even the ANC-led Government, but the liberation movement itself.

At one point in his statement Mr. Zuma said: ``We have been aware of some elements in various guises, who have been trying to isolate the President by creating the impression that some of his trusted comrades are plotting against him and, in this way, remove them from him.'' Divide and destroy, the classic tactic of all warfare. Nowhere is this more evident than in the political warfare that has been going on in South Africa between a Government committed to, even if with vacillation and compromise and an occasional whiff or taint of corruption, to an agenda of transformation, and the still privileged and unrestructured minority bent upon resisting transformation. The war has really become dirty since Mr. Mbeki succeeded Mr. Mandela. For, a crucial element in the polemics of this is the contrast that is repeatedly pressed between a benevolent Nelson Mandela, embracing all, in particular the Whites, in his transparency, and a satanic and secretive Thabo Mbeki, the vengeful Africanist. Every lapse, every instance of real or alleged corruption and incompetence, by the democratic government has thus become a weapon in the armoury of its opponents. One would imagine, reading the Sunday papers, that the country is mired in corruption and criminal incompetence, that the democratic Government is no different from, indeed is even worse than, the apartheid regime.

In this agenda, Mr. Mbeki is accorded the top position in a hierarchy of corruption and criminal incompetence. The three steps that have led to this elevation - or downfall in a hierarchy of angels - are his alleged soft stance towards Zimbabwe's President, Mr. Robert Mugabe, his attempt to intervene in the debate on the ``causal links'' between HIV and AIDS, and finally, his refusal to issue a proclamation that would have allowed Judge Willem Heath, projected by himself and the media as the only person in South Africa capable of combating corruption, to be associated with Parliament's inquiry into the multi-billion rands arms deal. These continue to be further refined, each week bringing in new revelations.

Any attempt on the part of the democratic Government to defend itself is met with the sneering comments that it is playing the race card - a game at which the political and media opposition is an expert. Mr. Zuma, initially projected as a political innocent, has in the past two years been dusted up and now projected as a far more ``suave and diplomatic statesman'' than Mr. Mbeki - the very description used for Mr. Mbeki during his term as Deputy President.

As always, such agendas can thrive only in an environment that allows them to thrive. This brings one to the question of the ANC's own culpability, its failure to ensure discipline among its members, to take action against corrupt elements. The dilemma is not unique, for it is faced by every revolutionary movement as it transforms itself into a ruling political party. What strikes this observer, however, is the fatal lowering of guard evident at all levels of the ANC since it became a party of Government, as if the fact of it leading the government has meant it has really defeated all its enemies. Unless it recovers its revolutionary passion and capacity for anger, unless it sets its own house in order, the prospects are it will continue to be beset by forces opposed to change, and increasingly be given to only ad hoc responses to such challenges.

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