The ANC Integrity Management System is not about innocent until proven guilty. It is an ethical terrain of struggle.

        The centrality of integrity, as virtue leaders must possess, has become one criterion to score high in many indices of ethical leadership. Everyday experience shows that societies are willing to trade parts of their envisaged democratic order for greater ethicalness. On such grounds, member integrity management systems assert their superiority in liberation movements such as the ANC. Although the street-level experience of post-liberation struggle governments is almost universal on corruption, there are differences of opinion on how this scourge could be arrested. This rendition argues that the member integrity management system introduced by the ANC at its Mangaung 53rd Conference was a politically risky step but a giant leap for its ethical journey. 

Movements with a moral high-ground heritage, such as that of the ANC, have been strong because they balanced the conduct of their liberation struggle with those leading the struggle. A construct out of ideation by Black Theologians and followers of the then-dominating Christian Faith, the ethical basis of establishing a Native Congress was based on the virtues instructing those in leadership. The immorality of colonialism and the criminal character of apartheid could only find human justification in a state captured by greed and a low ethical substrate for those in leadership. Opposition to such a system could only appeal to the deeper ethical of humanity, where the integrity of those advancing any alternative is as important as winning the struggle.

The moral force inherent in the declaration that "no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people" provides accountability and scrutiny for those in leadership. As active agents in the struggle to establish a National Democratic Order that will lead to the creation of a National Democratic Society, the leadership of the liberation movement, wherever they are deployed or find themselves, should keep each other in check. Public integrity management systems and expectations whose performance bar is set at levels society averages cannot be expected to be determinative to that expected of the leadership of a movement that has boldly declared itself as a 'leader of society'. Those leading the struggle for a better life for all should have known that keeping a check on the ethical conduct of each other would be as sacrosanct as the expectation for them to be subject to the moral codes, rules, and laws they have created. 

The expectation, therefore, by some in the leadership complex of the liberation movement that its systems will be flexible to allow the prerogative of the 'majority of the moment' to use the 'democratic heritage' of the movement to lower its standards is dangerous to the health of the 'National Democratic Order' under construction. If the majority inside the movement (which is evidently growing in being a minority in society if previous election results assume authority status) is allowed to have the prerogative to reinterpret the normative basis of the movement's policies to meet the exigencies of political power aggrandisements, that will not only be a perfect recipe for graft and corruption, but a sure endorsement to fail society. 

The sad reality is that it is a lot easier to review policies outside a normative framework. The member integrity management system has its normative, and historical origins from the ANC's code of conduct which expresses the organisation's intent to live up to the highest standards of organisational behaviour under any circumstances. Cited in Dear Comrade President, Charles Nqcakula submits that (member integrity management systems) "introduce a moral ethos into everything that is done in the name of the movement by its members, including the leadership, and lays down rules as a personal badge of morality and honour in the struggle for South Africa's liberation"

The advantage of being in a democracy that valorises the independence of the courts, the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law; is that accountability is built into the system's setup. The system becomes the machinery through which malfeasance and related are processed independently of the constant demonstration of the instrumental political advantage earned from a majority vote. Once inside the system for processing, your innocence until proven guilty status, legitimate as it can be, is part of the judgement of involvement the reputation of a moral high ground heritage-wielding liberation movement has to contend with. The blight of malfeasance in South Africa is severe because of revelations whose force of perceptual truth is so strong that the integrity of the liberation movement might have to be curated not to be held ransom to that of its members as individuals. 

If leaders' political or regional strengths are left to arbitrarily review and outside a set normative framework, the liberation movement will be vulnerable to the inconsistency of the human element. The discretionary authority of in-liberation-movement coalitions, otherwise called factions, will rise in influence, and their shared wisdom or ignorance, might be the substrate to establishing a dictatorship type. As the discretion of the politically powerful grows, so do in-organisation ideational ethnicities concretise. The ambiguity and selective ways the without fear or favour mantra is applied tend to follow the in-organisational factional divides. 

Unless there is a decisive intervention in reconciling the dualities of political prerogative management and leadership of the ANC with its normative obligations to its leader of society roles, its relevance as the undisputed patent holder of the correctness of a non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic South Africa will face societal devaluations at every opportunity to express its feeling through an election or equivalent. Members of the ANC should start seeing the issue of ethics as an emerging terrain of the National Democratic Struggle to establish a National Democratic Order which will lead to the creation of a National Democratic Society. It should be seen as one of the spokes creating balance in the wheel that keeps the ANC to be a movement in a cordial relationship with its present and future.

The innovation of the member integrity management system adopted at the 53rd Conference in Mangaung enjoys the endearment of society beyond card-carrying liberation movement members, and cannot be risked for concealed conveniences. Not to put too fine an edge on it, patronising liberation movement disrepute manufacturers in its midst, even those that carry the most nostalgic struggle background, cannot be relied upon as the reason to reconsider the integrity management system adopted. Getting it to be efficient should be a preoccupation. Its reliance on volition for members to subject themselves to its process allows self-judgement before the innocence-seeking process begins. While the constitutional disciplinary process is very much part of the integrity management system, the history of working with it exhibits a pattern of inward-looking dominance and pecking order interference that might have compromised the system. CUT!!!

🤷🏿‍♂️Avuxeni, Africa Dzonga