The th!nc Foundation

This was written on 30 April 2009 (it was only language edited for this 2026 posting) Did the Jacob Zuma ANC victory either expose an apparent dearth of rational discourse in our democracy or reignite the discourse? Rational debates are by their nature expected to assume a scientifically justifiable objectivity, particularly in the often-muddy political theatre. The importance of academicians as a supposed repository of proven knowledge and previously recorded best practice, as well as the initiation-cum-generation of new knowledge, has been sharpened by the ‘psychological two-thirds’ majority Jacob Zuma ANC victory. The noticeable rise in the significance of specialists, experts and political analysts during this saga can be attributed to a myriad of reasons. Central to all these is the need to provide an answer to what most political scientists are unable to answer. The seemingly unanswerable question of what makes most of our voting population continue supporting the ANC and, by e...

The African National Congress, arguably the nexus of all political life in South Africa, is under pressure from history to undergo one of its most consequential reviews since its formation. History has bestowed on it, throughout its existence, the obligation to be a leader of society amid a vortex of competing interests. What is becoming apparent is that the way the ANC structured itself to execute the anti-colonial struggle cannot be the same as the way it structures itself as a governing party. As the nexus of politics influencing public policy, the efficiency within the ANC will always determine the stability or otherwise of South Africa as a democracy. Whilst the CODESA outcome was underpinned by a liberal democratic construct, the post-liberation rhetoric within the ANC has not matched the exigencies of the Constitution it has agreed to. The normative guidelines imposed by the Constitution on the public administration system are of a liberal democratic nature, and the ideologica...

In 1912, on this day, a group of Black Middle-Class men convened to establish what would become Africa’s most influential liberation movement, the ANC, laying the foundation for a movement rooted in African nationalism and democracy.   The intellectual prowess concentrated in Mangaung crafted a vision whose reach remains elusive to the modern-day heirs of its leadership. Shaped by intellectuals who became nodes of mobilisation through their privileged mission school education, which connected them to university education overseas, the ANC became the ideational Mecca of African politics.    Funded by a then land-owning class of traditional leaders, black labour brokers who traded with the then mining magnates, attracted by both the Kimberly diamond finds and the Pilgrim's Rest-cum-Witwatersrand gold discoveries, its agenda could only be liberal and Wilberforcean in outlook. The preponderance of religious leaders, in the main African Independent Churches, dictate...

The succession contest to lead the ANC after Ramaphosa is more about leveraging the advantage of such a victory than securing the country’s presidency, which is the ultimate goal in South African politics.  Since the 2016 Local Government elections, when the urban vote began showing signs of a possible coalition government-driven democratic order, the ANC has been declining as a majority party. It had already begun dismantling its basic units of organisation, branches, as nodes of interaction with communities or voters, through the strange, yet left to reign, member-of-member gatekeeping system. The linking of in-party political office with offices that accrue after an election made being an ANC leader about the benefits of such positions to the individual rather than to society.    This untenable situation benefited the growing opposition complex. Unlike the early post-1994 years, by 2016, there were more political parties with the requisite social and demographic ...

To understand the season of a Paul Mashatile-generation ANC presidency, essentially an act of post-liberation alchemy, we must first understand the world that summoned this generation into existence. At its birth, this generation was born to parents at the crucible of human change. They are the babies who boomed for the parenting generation to be called baby boomers.  The babies that boomed include Patrice Motsepe, Gwen Ramokgopa, Nomvula Mokonyane, Thoko Didiza, Dickson Masemola, Zweli Mkhize, Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, Pitso Mosimane, Lesetja Kganyago, and several others.  Our parents, a demographic born in the aftermath or in the middle of the Second World War, were of a different breed. They were profoundly idealistic, somewhat differently educated, and had an affluence that disrespected any chauvinism, whence the Freedom Charter and the conceptualisation of the National Democratic Revolution were born with our generation. To our parents, being a family was central. With or w...

The trigger event for the ultimate colonisation of Southern Africa is, among other factors, the global trade demands driven by the pursuit of better trade routes to the East. The Dutch East India Company (VOC), one of the earliest multinational corporations involved in global trade, established a refreshment station at the Cape in 1652 after several shipwrecks along the shores. This station was mainly to provide resting and resupply points for ships travelling to and from the East Indies , with essentials such as water, food, and other provisions.  Despite the dispossession and the brutally extractive effects on the indigenous people, the DEIC decision established South Africa as a geopolitical hub with several global refreshment capabilities beyond the narrow colonial objectives that followed. Beyond the imperialist intents of later European nations, the refreshment character of South Africa assumed new and globally decisive meanings. As the G20 summit sat in Soweto ,...