The th!nc Foundation

In his address to the Northern Cape Elective Provincial Conference, President Ramaphosa elevated into ANC nomenclature the concept of organic unity to capture the complexity of forging unity by dealing with what is arguably the cause of disunity; the chronic unearthing of its members and leaders out of the corruption cesspool. The ANC has no historical lessons about dealing with corruption as an existential threat from beyond its membership base, and is thus calling for a unity type that calls for closing of ranks against the wrong and deviant from within its ranks. As a standard, Ramaphosa calls for "a renewal process which must tell us that we want to protect the ANC, its existence, and its effectiveness", ... he further urges that the ANC "must arrive at a point where we will not tolerate dubious behavior that undermines the standing of this glorious movement and diminishes it’s standing and its integrity". This he argues will anchor (organic) unity or principled...

The normative shifts in the ANC to deal with the scourge of corruption should be cautiously welcomed, given the salient resurgence of dictatorship by the new normative coalition within the very ANC. It has become increasingly easy for political elites with intents to recapture a state from an otherwise discredited political coalition or party to repurpose norms and standards associated with anti-corruption to promote socially acceptable government values to strengthen the sovereign authority of a personality cult. The mobilisation of the fourth estate as a bulwark to defend a ‘normatively shifting’ government thus milking out of corruption ‘newsworthy breaking stories’ of corruption enrols free media enthusiasts to a sub-context that elevates anti-corruption at the expense of social justice demands as manifest in institutionalised inequality and the economic gentrification of the voting majority of South Africa.   The political space afforded to anti-economic transformation based s...

1. What is the possibility that some of the leaders we have, became ANC members because of their dislike or hatred of apartheid, but they do not necessarily like to be ANC members as persons 2. Are all members of the ANC it’s members because of what it stands for, or what it stood against, or what they can get out of it? 3. Can the ANC be classified as a formal political party or a conglomeration of formation types whose direction depends on who leads it and/or who buys it? 4. If the ANC is a Nationalist Movement, what is Nationalist about it, if it is not, what is it then? 5. Assuming there is an ideology that glues ANC members, what is it? How does it inform its day to day operations?  6. Can the ANC NEC genuinely claim it is dealing with corruption? 7. Was there ever a New Dawn, post NASREC 2017? Or was NASREC indeed a Rand Easter Show Venue resembling the Emperor's Palace Gambling Venue? You can post your answers on the comments section of the blog.

The 1994 democratic breakthrough remains one of the greatest experiences our country has gone through. The mere presence of a released Mandela became the necessary opiate to tone our approach to the chiselling in of the nation’s liberation aspirations. The mandate to finalise the country’s Constitution as the bedrock of a society we wished, fought, and some died for was left to those that were elected into a Parliament-cum-Constituent-Assembly. In drafting the Constitution all the majority party had to do was balance the exigencies of governing with those of nation building, whilst at the same time navigating compromises made at CODESA within the overtly restitutive promises of liberation. The somewhat manufactured posture of the ANC to have won the liberation war became a fictitious ritual that kept an impatient generation of youth hopeful of the liberation promises. The growing maturity of the first cohort of political elites with the realities of governing created ideational shifts ...

The scourge of corruption has been with post-liberation governments in Africa for as long as independence was gained from colonial masters. Corruption robbed the continent of its development potential and global competitive capacity. In almost all instances of corruption, it has been an in-public sector sub-vocation practised by members of governing parties, often led by senior leaders and/or the dominant establishments within those parties. This sub-public service vocation has facilitated the failed statehood of many African countries. The need, therefore, to confront corruption as the catalyst of state failure has thus been established as a condition precedent for the success of any endeavour to redefine Africa's development path. This opinion piece looks at the ANC integrity mechanism as an anti-corruption innovation more than it being seen as a politically motivated punitive measure. I argue that it is not a step-aside policy as branded. Context of the discussion Various ef...

As we reminisce on the Public Service as the index institution of leadership in the development of globally competitive nations, we are saddened to hear of the passing of the founding father of the South African post-apartheid Public Service Commission, Pof Stan Sangweni. Affectionately called Bra Stan, despite his visible elder looks, and because of the respect he showed for everyone, Professor Sangweni was a scholar, leader, mentor and institution builder to many. I met Prof Sangweni at the South African Foundation for Public Management (SAFPUM), a Public Administration and Management think tank that folded the apartheid era South African Institute of Public Administration (SAIPA), and birthed the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM). He was one of the cognitive cohort of leaders that conceptualised the new post-apartheid Public Service and Administration System entrenched in Chapter 10 of the South African Constitution. In that cohort history re...

"O President My President…Our fearful trip has begun…The prize we sought is diminishing”, writes a South African Poet. The fearful trip in the poem points to a journey towards a failed state. This cry fits the current state of the nation too well as there is growing evidence of public sector dysfunctionality that meets criteria generally associated with a failed state, and fragile democracies. The resolve to renew and rebuild the ANC by the ANC has thus become one of its most legitimate and ambitious post-apartheid projects. This is in fact a necessity, if the ANC, is to define itself beyond just having been a liberation movement which history has positioned to lead the struggle that ultimately repudiation of the apartheidness of South Africa’s government system. In its accord with the then apartheid state’s governing elite and economic establishment, the ANC, and based on the overwhelming voter mandate it got in 1994, committed to amongst others, “establishing a society based...

The events that followed the suspension in 2021 of the ANC's Secretary General, Ace Magashule, are not only m definitive of the ANC's future, but will at the same time redefine South Africa's politics as we know them. Beyond this suspension will be questions of what becomes of the ANC, and can the ANC muster courage and energy to renew itself and still continue to govern. This piece will attempt to provide context on this matter by, and amongst others, looking at the kaleidoscopic character of the ANC as a movement and lately political party in a capitalist democracy. The ANC was formed in 1912 as a culmination of several responses by a Native African Political Elite to their exclusion from the post-South African War peace arrangements that gave birth to the constitutional formalisation of the geopolitical space called South Africa. At its inception the ANC was in essence an imagination of a Victorian English educated black elite that was Wilberforcean liberalism influenced...