Renewal for resilience starts with acknowledging whose interests.

The greatest conundrum for a movement that masterminded the RSA political settlement is reconciling its centrist, absolute power-dependent perspective of government with the emerging and disruptive multiparty and coalition government-based democracy. The leadership instability that comes with losing absolute power to govern runs through the entire organisation's rubric.

The internal convulsions that preceded the loss of absolute power and were about creating the conditions and the desire for a renewed ANC have now resurfaced in the form of renewal for who and what questions. To renew the ANC, a reconfigured and stable distribution of internal to the ANC power architecture and a broad acceptance of the new rules that govern the conduct of members in a context where state power is shared with the immediate pre-2024 national elections opposition complex is required.

One of the realities to contend with is that- it is not that political parties or factions within them should not be adversarial, competitive, and truly political. They do need to maintain a vigil against all competitors and fight hard to win. However, they cannot do it by focusing on adversaries that keep the movement strategically the same.

Given that political power, however well managed, inevitably comes to a crisis point of being lost or ending, the balance of whatever power is sustained will also be imbalanced. This would thus require a relationship with the renewal process that looks beyond the interests of the incumbents. Political power is not born like the humans contesting it; it is a painstaking effort by those who made or manufactured it. It, therefore, requires in any generation of the movement those competent in statecraft, diplomacy, making institutions function, and a capability to be effective in adjusting the organisation when circumstances change. Such competence should only sometimes be assumed to be found only in those who lead; many who operate in this domain generally have no interest in the moment-based success of the organisation but beyond their generation's sustainability.

Successful political movements keep their most antagonistic adversaries or opponents in their peripheral vision. They concentrate on their members and supporters, not their rivals. They establish competence and political education programs so leaders at all levels can address the needs of their members and supporters. They always strive to satisfy their supporters' needs better than the opposition and then they did in the past. They study the opposition complex—just not too much.

To do this, a movement must search for, if not produce, a new breed of leaders. This breed must be in touch with members and supporters. The 'each one teaches one' mantra must be lived within an appropriate content environment. Loyalty to the movement's mission should be the glue that keeps it together. 

Politics, as the core process of the liberation movement, survives on interests as the currency of the operational market. Therefore, the renewal process must reconcile the ties that bind everyone in the organisation. The truth is that beyond the ideological objectives of the organisation, known by a select few and cognitive sections of the movement's membership and supporters, the rest are members because they want the ANC to benefit them. 

Personal interests, which include careerism and influence over the political economy of where a person is in the greater scheme of human co-existence, are the drivers of why people continue to be members or support organisations. The extent to which what is a personal interest becomes mutual is when the necessity of the other contributes to the goal of shared value. It becomes organisational when all see the possibility of collectively thriving. 

In South Africa, the structure has been legalised, to begin with, the 'we the people idea': who amongst us the people is tasked with achieving our collective will, what values will guide all of us as a society, how public power is organised to prevail over us, and how our (human or otherwise) rights are guaranteed. As components of 'we the people', we are all persons whose relationship with our interests is at all material times consequential to the individual. 

The history of the ANC reflects a highly regimented and hierarchy-driven organisation predicated on royalty, nobility, and social class. As its mission was to liberate all in the 'we the people' category of humans in South Africa, the reach and catchment got broadened beyond 'the movement's people'. This impacted how new hierarchies needed to be organised for subsequent purposes. 

The robustness of the 1949 Congress League Programme of Action and its political posterity-defining resolution of developing a Freedom Charter brought forth the ANC's flexibility to align interests into a common currency of politics in South Africa. The common purpose of politics was to make the people’s will determine the legitimacy of government to claim authority over 'we the people'. The choice line was drawn in the proverbial sand: you fight for the will of the people to prevail or the will of a racial, minority, and class oligarchy to prevail. 

The clarity of purpose enabled the components of the liberation movement to define niche areas within which their personal, mutual, and organisational interests could be galvanised to ensure the people will liberate South Africa as a space for a better life for all. As 1994 delivered the universal franchise as a test, notwithstanding voter apathy and discontent, the mechanism to give credence to 'the will of the people', new and rigid hierarchies, prone to internal organisation confusion took root. This is why renewal for resilience should start with a 'to whose interests' question. 

The most significant measure of the renewed resilience of ANC will be when its leaders can create a common post-struggle against apartheid and colonialism purpose for 'we the people'. It must be an ANC that connects with people at a human and purpose level. It must allow the will of its members, and tangentially its supporters, to recreate it to levels superior to anything better than its current self. CUT!!!