The movement has always been a collection of Individuals, especially thinking ones. It must treasure them ALL.

Basic political theory teaches that individuals are components of interests. They are embodiments of the diversities in society upon which politics are generally based. Their sovereign character as okindividuals makes them not simply puppets of interests but can operate as nodes of sponsored blocks of interests. With accumulated social, political, and economic capital, they can easily become the substrates of interests and thus affect the course of politics through their opinions or coalitions. 

Individuals often favoured by history will define, structure, or construct a political order with which they will answer the questions 'who rules', 'who should rule', and 'how to be ruled'. Over time, the political elites presiding over the political order, and based on the power and resources they command, have been able to create arrangements with which they would govern society, including themselves. They agreed that this would be called government of, by, and for the people, otherwise called a democratic order. The political order establishes hierarchies inside a class that rules and a democratic order establishes hierarchies inside a class that governs in terms of defined mandates, also called the Constitution. 

 

These arrangements of hierarchies in society established axioms of power, which very few revolutions, if any, have been able to deconstruct as templates of political elite building. Despite the grandiose political rhetoric during revolutions or struggles, the unequal distribution of political power stays a constant; the resultant elites after a revolution are internally homogeneous, if not unified. The striking feature of post-liberation elites is their ability to be self-perpetuating and exclusive, albeit essentially autonomous. This explains why almost all political questions are settled according to the interests of the political elite. 

 

It is only when there is a miscarriage in the construct of a beneficiary political or otherwise elite that the ruling establishment will fund a new revolution to restore the pecking order in society. The pursuit of a position where the probability of influencing the policies and activities of the state or the authoritative allocation of values remains the single potent glue with which political elites are built. This constitutes the main currency of higher-order politics or interests. 

 

However, no interest is safe because interests, if unmatched or unmanaged in a political order, are free to rise and fall. This explains the maxim 'there are no permanent interests in a society with diffused hierarchies'. If individuals become institutions and accumulate their capital beyond institutions that house them, they assume importance to politics proportional to the (perceived) power they embody.

 

In this context, the political or otherwise capital of individuals in a society should be taken seriously. In politics, it should be axiomatic that some people will have power more than others, and often more than those who sit in positions which look like they have the power. The South African Constitution vests authorities in the legislature, the President, and the courts. It then diffuses the power to the people as individuals or coalitions they are organised within. This creates micro-coalitions with which the exercise of the various authorities can be managed, controlled, and directed. At best, society can estimate the contours of power distribution (political and economic) by relying on indirect evidence from the depth of public participation.

 

Individuals can be manufactured to be, or their conduct can make their brands beyond the imagination of the organisations they belong to. In South Africa, we have experienced how the trans-sector use of the branding industry has undermined organisations and elevated individuals within them to pivot from which organisations are defined. Nelson Mandela became the brand built to enable its detachment from the ANC as his background of historical significance. Jacob Zuma was extracted as a state capture and corruption narrative of ANC leadership. He was defined as a person whose legacy should be embraced with reservations and thus choke what he stood for as what the ANC cannot claim and celebrate without risking collusion with aspects of the narrative he has been interwoven with. Other leaders are still in the branding oven and are deployed into narratives. 

 

The resignation of Mavuso Msimanga, and potentially others that did not go public, given the warning of the ANC SG to stalwarts, carries with it the reputational value that has been manufactured and curated around him. He resigns from the positional advantages of Deputy Chairperson of the MKVA and an influential member of the 101 Veterans of the ANC. These inside the ANC organisations possess the largest concentration of in-ANC person-days experience, which creates a critical bridge of in-ANC generations that only written accounts can attempt to complete. 

 

While his resignation will uproot him from the institutional edifice the ANC afforded him with power to influence, the societal positions he occupies in the memory of society will determine the reach of his value to South Africa. His handling of the in-ANC Zuma must-go campaign displayed his gravitas and command of legitimacy to stand up against any perceived malfeasance in the organisation. He might not be the designated bull in the kraal, but he is one that others negotiate defined spaces with. 

 

With South Africa unable to produce self-standing political leaders not constrained by party political discipline, leadership in the ilk of Msimanga has emerged as the voice of 'the people' in the interior of party political power. As part of 'the few' that 'talk truth inside power', he represents a constituency that awaits when the ANC returns to its Oliver Tambour-led self.  A self which repudiates the perception that its members and ‘deployees’ are corrupt, and that the organisation has a high tolerance threshold for venality. He is the breadth and depth of ANCness. 

 

The reaction to his resignation exposed the tale of two ANCs and thus defined what society should expect. Mavuso is a colossal indicator of a cohort of its stalwarts and members who believe it is in decline and is headed in the wrong direction. There has not been a study of the size of this group, save to know it is composed of its experienced and revered former leaders and technocrats. They mainly decry the betrayal of the ANC's moral authority and, thus, the loss of hegemony. On the other hand, a cohort believes the ANC is on the right path, notwithstanding its challenges. They have requested 'allowed to lead' and 'not be de-campaigned'. These groups' coalescing might create an impression that they are multiple when they are just two. 

 

What is familiar about them is that they can be increasingly defensive of their positions, sometimes without pausing to interrogate the correctness of such positions. They all love the ANC they believe they are members of and do not seem to have agreed if it is the one society will endorse to govern in 2024. Despite the ANC still being in a commanding position compared to its rivals, one-on-one, its somewhat immature gimmicks have allowed it to believe its under-a-magnifying glass strength and confidence. The resignation and response indicate an organisation in the grip of leaders that might be ruled by fear and thus have turned inwards and cannibalised its strategic strengths to reclaim its hegemonic position. 

 

Despite its challenges, reports of malfeasance by its members, associations of its brand with state dysfunction, and a decay in the quality of members and leadership it has attracted in branches, the reality is that of all contesting parties, it still commands hegemony over the comprehensive liberation project the Constitution has legalised. It is the organisation all want to be better than. It is an organisation with a footprint that can only be neutralised by a conglomeration of minorities to create a majority. A majority is failing to sustain the required threshold to govern. It needs to have an intellectual relationship with power and influence like it has embraced the arrogance of not wanting to be told. 

No party has grown to challenge it. However, sufficient opposition is developing against what it is now doing, not its track record as the liberation movement. The ANC must turn off the rising egos of its leadership, past and present. It must deal with the 'we were better leaders' and 'we should be given a chance to lead' tendencies, eating into the energy required to finalise the comprehensive liberation project. The 112 track record should be sufficient to leverage a half-a-century thinking tradition South Africa needs. Otherwise MABAHAMBE BONKE!!!