Can we say the African National Congress is truly in decline?

     Can we say the African National Congress is truly in decline as the once 'authentic' voice of the liberation promise for South Africans? Certainly not. Not if there is a growing confusion of its role as a post-Apartheid political party caught up in the narrow exigencies of state power contestation, and that of it being a custodian of the transformation objects the very state power needs to be repurposed towards. It is this confusion that can be ascribed, arguably, to the reemergence of familiar themes of race and class anchored human co-existence behaviors last seen during the heydays of Apartheid, notably by those that were legislated beneficiaries of the system.

If the ANC's past and its enormous power to galvanize social forces against injustice is anything to take to the bank, any establishment that thrives on a political-economic system that perpetuates inequality would be in derelict to allow the ANC to return to its anti injustice unity days. The difference might be the non-racial character and consensus of such an establishment. In this whirlpool of consensuses to weaken the electoral powerfulness of the ANC, one thing that emerges to be crystal clear is how the demise of true ANCness grew unabated since the historic 60:40 Polokwane split. This has indeed established a new political context with serious implications to the nation's posture towards the liberation promise that came with the 1994 non-racial enfranchisement. 

Out of the Polokwane Conference, and two subsequent others, and notably the almost 50:50 split in NASREC, it became clear that the ANC had been drifting away from its liberation movement mandate of being a leader of society. Events that unfolded during and beyond the Polokwane-Mangaung-NASREC conferences have landed the ANC in a chronic credibility crisis, almost in a diabetic ideological condition where it has nutrients to keep it stable but lacks leadership as the insulin that must regulate its normative levels towards governance. The preoccupation with the self by its leaders, and not its proverbial 'our people', made its leadership across all levels to be vulnerable to being corruptible and easy to capture by the highest bidder. In fact, the level of capture is so pornographic that society is more worried about the 'normative' standing of the capturers than the correctness or otherwise of capture.

There is, therefore, no question that the ANC as an institution of leadership is a messy situation. The usual explanations for the disarray, however, seem to be failing to capture the root causes of the mess. Factionalism, popular discontent with the economic transformation mandate drift, general economic failure of the state, unbridled arrogance of previous establishment beneficiaries in creating a condition of freedom without economic power, and litigation mustered persecution of liberation struggle gains are the usual suspects in most analyses, but they are symptoms of the party political center that fails to hold crisis, not causes. The weakness, and in some cases collapse, of the central authority of a factionalized ANC NEC in so many of its central policy positions is the real source of its current disorder. The in-ANC battles to control branches at all costs, including buying them, along with the frail authority of regional and provincial structures of the ANC, as manifest in the many interim structures that are in charge of the ANC, define the long-term institutional leadership challenge of the ANC. These in-ANC political vacuums invite the intervention of mavericks, the criminal element, state capturers, foreign intelligence operatives, and interest-driven oligarchs from near and far to annex the soul of the ANC. This context has, unfortunately, allowed factional, tribal/ethnic, and racial identities to become more pronounced as emerging currencies of our politics. 

Increasingly, and as a result of the mess, notwithstanding arguments by others that it was manufactured, ANC leadership is being positioned in society as obstacles to development, reform, and effectual government. Including its own admission that 'there were nine wasted years', the ANC fed into a construct that would in fact contribute to the erosion of its moral authority to speak of human freedoms without normative encumbrances. Successfully, the 'nine wasted years' characterization packaged a period in its history into an expungable unit of analysis and fast-tracked many an analysis to its end, which by social design represented a stalemate period whose resolution meant the ushering of new leadership, presumably with some newness. History will in time record what inside the 'wasted' years required airbrushing into the convenient sieve of a legitimate societal discontent at corruption and state capture; maybe a subject for another rendition.

Notwithstanding, in this vortex of messing up, the NASREC conference emerged with a new leader of the ANC, President Ramaphosa. Dubbed a 'stalemate resolution candidate', he emerged out of a process that introduced into the corruption and state capture mix a phenomenon of overt in-ANC campaign funding. How money and open campaigning played a role towards the NASREC conference marked the ushering in of a publicly 'denied' new era of politicking inside the ANC; funded primaries American style. President Ramaphosa campaigned for ANC Presidency as he was taking along the South African electorate, a condition that put the ANC in a precarious position of considering its President in the purview of how society will later react to their choice of leader, the template has decisively shifted. As a consequence, the depth of corruption as 'narrated' into the South African social space, and clinically ascribed to a pre-Ramaphosa ANC Presidency required out of his term a 'near ritualization' of 'corruption and state capture' as being synonymous to any views that sought to 'question' the 'new' his Presidency represented. There is no evidence that he is part of such orchestrations and ritualizations though, otherwise, his sophistication would be at another level if he is. 

Despite that, a Ramaphosa ANC presidency found itself being elected, 

firstly, under the old ANC collective leadership and democratic centralism system which is more conservative than the president himself, and included a great many leaders in the NEC who represented a past his 'New Dawn' might have angled as a problem. Having entered the race through one of the most modernized strategies the ANC has in recent times seen, the modernity he carried could not survive choking by the force of tradition dominant in the ANC. The last of those that see the ANC more as a liberation movement rather than a formal modern party engaged in hardcore party politics that require career lobbyists and politicians to manage and reconcile conflicting societal interests with the vision of South Africa as chronicled in its constitution seems to still be in charge. 

Secondly, his presidency would have had to develop a constructive partnership between its almost 50:50 factions within the NEC and its sub-national structures. This would have required that Ramaphosa make compromises, cut deals, and share the responsibility for governance. Instead, Ramaphosa chose to keep the factionalism fragile NEC in place and take compliance to its national conference resolutions not only for granted but elevate those that are supportive to what 'he sought to achieve' to prominence. With an abundance of both outside-ANC benevolence and social capital, the ANC NEC would be delicately converted into a rubber-stamping organ of the ANC. Key aspects of the private sector and thus investor discontent, notably the management of ESKOM or the energy sector, the management of State-Owned Entities, and consequence management for those that would have been found guilty of corruption were not only prioritized for in-state action but featured in NEC discussions with consequences that included the suspension of the Secretary-General of the ANC. 

thirdly, his presidency had the obligation of understanding that rebuilding the moral authority of the ANC as leader of society is the necessary first step for South Africa to escape its flirt with state failure. 

fourthly, his presidency had to contend with the inconvenience of an ANC burdened with leadership whose thinking is stuck in the desirability of operating a  democratic centralist organization governing an open-society-inspired constitutional democracy.  In reality, Ramaphosa's choice grew to be about building normative leadership as the new brand position of the post-Polokwane ANC or leaving it in the factionalism-driven arbitrary leadership organization it had started to become. Fortunately for society, as a person, Ramaphosa seems to have been in congruence with the fact that once the in-ANC order is established, there will be a chance for economic development and political progress. 

The essence of uprooting corruption in society and dealing with state capture provided new arrangements within which a 'state of in-NEC emergency' could prevail, and those that were found to be in conflict with the law and brought the ANC into disrepute were put through its cutthroat integrity management mechanism. This mechanism would result in leaders stepping aside until their cases with law enforcement agencies are no longer putting the ANC into disrepute. The anti-corruption posture of Ramaphosa was also bolstered by a Zuma-era established judicial commission of inquiry into state capture whose revelations became the supply side to the concretizing in-ANC integrity management system. Revelations at the commission will go into history as the single most process that liquidated the moral arsenal of the ANC.

 

In this vortex of uncertainty, Ramaphosa started to move on key economic policy decisions whose impact the NEC has yet to deal with as agenda items, save in muted tones outside its formal structures. As the ideological costs of these reforms to the 'force of the left' posture of the ANC rise, the social costs of corruption to its brand became a constrain for many of its left-leaning ideologues to challenge new economic trajectories. Worsening this is the crafty manner in which general societal narratives on the desirability of reducing state involvement in managing commanding heights of the economy is being presented as a silver bullet solution to an otherwise unfolding narrative of massive corruption having occurred in SOEs. In the absence of alternative narrative spaces, and restrictions to free political activity occasioned by the COVID19 pandemic social distancing arrangements, a Ramaphosa presidency was able to move on economic reform decisions never imaginable under an ANC government. 

The reduced free political activity space impacted on the traditional branch-based communication machinery of the ANC to counter living room beamed and social media streamed narratives by a contracted political analyst community and sophisticated policy think tanks, as well as civil society movements allowed to have airtime on mega communication platforms. Even if there would have been internal opposition to certain policy trajectories a Ramaphosa presidency selected, the state of national disaster and liquidated non-establishment thinking within the ANC could not have been able to muster a sustainable campaign to do so. 

As the state was dealing with COVID19 impacts, it also lost its ability to hear from society if it is doing well or not. A condition that left a Ramaphosa presidency vulnerable to survey companies' reports on their 'population sample' extracted based perception surveys. The decline in support of the ANC, with a 'survey companies reported' increase in Ramaphosa's ratings, remains an enigma only an opened up free political activity context will prove correct or otherwise. The changing context meant the Ramaphosa supporting faction in the ANC was on the rise, albeit in an ideological vacuum, save for the perceived benefits of doing so in relation to a shrinking economy and thus social base to survive beyond an ANC-insulated space. Simultaneously, the true impact of COVID19 and the global economic meltdown that was reaching members of the ANC in dysfunctional branches also started to bolster those that postured as in-ANC opposition to a Ramaphosa presidency. 

With a mandate to renew and rebuild an otherwise sinking, institution of leadership, ANC, Ramaphosa would have been deeply challenged to enter the 'post-Polokwane beyond 2017 phase' of his ANC President term with a plan. Such a plan would require him to rescue the residuals of nation-building and economic competitiveness of South Africa whilst sitting on a rapidly failing state of the organization the ANC was as at the Conference that elected him. The post-a-Zuma-type presidential expectations which the global investor community, and the local business sector confidence imposed on both his personal and institutional positions of ANC President and that of the country, grew closest to those that Mandela had in respect of national reconciliation. Clearly, this would call into the deep cognitive prowess of those he was 'election' surrounded with from the NASREC process, and those he had the prerogative to invite into his National Executive, including an advisory brigade in his personal office. Amongst those he needed to rely upon to renew and rebuild the ANC, the conference elected Secretary-General Ace Magashule was the pivot upon which any organizational renewal strategy Ramaphosa would have hatched will depend on. This relationship, which started with the Secretary-General declaring that an ANC Presidential term is five years, interpreted as him declaring his commitment to work towards changing the NASREC outcome by then, would end up with the two of them accepting that the renewal will be reflective of their tension. A substantial portion of the NEC grew to be an institutionalized in-ANC opposition that somehow introduced defiance of the center, a condition that permeated to all levels of the organization.

Ramaphosa's response to a defiance-infested section, with significant but not sophisticated influence, was simply to ignore it by creating an impression that it is important in the broader scheme of state governing as its hallucinating believed. To his initial credit, he tried, though frustratingly unsuccessful, to find common ground. His compromise constitution of Cabinet, a fatal error according to established best practice on leadership in contexts like one he faced, robbed him of an opportunity to dichotomize his historical mission into party renewal on one side and state-building on the other. His compromise posture turned out to be more piecemeal, and quite frankly, only responsive to specific crises, notably anti-corruption and state capture, rather than as part of a sustainable and systematic effort to build a stable and institutional leadership as well as values-based ANC and society ready enough to start both renewal processes. Instead of rewarding those of his capable supporters that bought into his renewal vision as a person-in-front, his compromise posture on including those hostile and antagonistic to his leadership saw his gesture as more a sign of weakness than what he had hoped for. 

The consequence of his compromise posture has now mutated into parallel centers of power and influence he is seemingly finding difficult to marshal towards his 'New Dawn', a vision he has defined himself with. The drift from his 'new dawn' promise is already alienating his in-ANC and in-civil society support bases, and swinging the balance of forces in favor of a maverick's infested opposition complexes. Internal to the ANC, and because of its policy fluidity as well as dependence on the left that might have not redefined itself properly in the wake of it being challenged at the core by the advent of state-led capitalism and related, personalities are posturing for a hollow 'I have a dream or 'yes we can' type of 'vote for me' leadership style that saw Herman Mashaba rising like a Sphinx and becoming a factor in our national politics. 

The manufacturing of an irreconcilable opposition context through sponsored postures of making the ANC the problem of South Africa, and somehow indoctrinating its leadership to start striving for survey ratings that position them above brand ANC, has to date had the cost of increased voter apathy and not yet voter porting. These states of in-ANC affairs have created an ideological stalemate on where the country and society should be heading to. In ANC terms it creates a series of dangerous scenarios, some of which are starting to find 'interesting' expression through strategic individuals of influence from within the ANC, yet posturing as being angelic to its situation. CUT!!!

🤷🏿‍♂️A ndzo ti tsalela bakithi