Skip to main content

There is more to the disbandment of KZN and Gauteng PECs.

 This was published in the TimesLive 13 December 2024

As South Africa approaches its holiday season, there will be no holiday for the ANC. The year ends with one of its fiercely debated subjects, the disbandment of PECs in the two economically dominant provinces. Without the benefit of criteria used to generate the possibility of disbanding two of its strategically important provinces, Gauteng and KZN, it is clear that RSA is now at an either-or decision point on this matter. The stakes will be higher when the "who succeeds Ramaphosa as ANC President question is factored into the discussions. The ANC is now a site of succession politics and attendant contestations. Its soul will be the prize or casualty of the GP-KZN disbandment. Wrestling within its top leadership echelons is not a good sign of the stability required to complete its ambitious renewal program. 

The established convention is that the Deputy President is the heir to the ANC throne. The convention is vulnerable to disruption, thus making the position of the ANC President available to anyone who can mount a campaign. This makes provinces that command numerical and hegemonic influences within the ANC sites of the 'who succeeds Ramaphosa' battle.  All logic in the ANC might, until 16 December 2027, be filtered through its succession battles. The cadence of the 2026 Municipal Election readiness of the ANC will reflect how dominant the contesting groups or factions have become. The upcoming Regional Conferences of the ANC, essentially the nodes of influence to determine municipal elections candidate lists, as well as delegates to the muted 2025 National General Council, and the finalisation of some Provincial Executive Committees will be an additional 52 sites of the succession battle. 

 

The logic of acting on provinces that did not perform in the immediate past elections and causing the ANC to lose the right to form a government might be choked by which province contributes to the in-ANC leadership contest. The dismal 17% and 19% performances in the two provinces will not have the force to invoke sanction as preparation for the next milestone, though logically legitimate. In the strictest sense of analysis, the continuation of the two PECs means that the same leadership, which yielded the current election outcome, is expected to generate new and different outcomes.

 

Arguably, the MK Party dynamic as an exogenous factor that affected the two disbandment-threatened provinces is a good reason for poor performance. Still, it does not change the loss of political power implications attached to it. At worst, it makes a plausible argument to open a debate on why the MKP dynamic happened, a debate that might question the entire leadership of the ANC. It might bring into the centre the many unanswered questions mutedly entertained within the ANC and now openly deliberated by the SACP, COSATU, and SANCO. 

 

The disbandment conversations are led by a post-election analysis framework, which will recommend what non-performance deserves. In this whirlpool, the ANC has to deal with its decisions to establish a Government of National Unity, some of which have become political capital for the pending succession debate. The GNU introduced the dynamic of sufficient consensus onto the political landscape and, by default, a context of negotiating and renegotiating policy positions other ANC administrations might have taken. The BELA Act is the immediate policy with which the GNU commitments were stretch-tested. The logic of opposition to it, which arguably might have persuaded President Ramaphosa to order a rethink of the contested sections, survived the NEDLAC process. Only the ideological posture towards the latest agreement is the new political capital necessary to deflect the post-election analysis reports and the implications thereof. 

 

The disbandment discussion now permeates all other policy considerations. Where grand political gains could have been made, the ANC had to settle for positions that left it compromised. The logic of survival and succession might be dominant and suffocating the political prowess that the ANC has historically been about. The latest statement by the Deputy President, Paul Mashatile, that there will be no disbandment should be understood in its proper context. His statement, "Overall we didn’t do well as the ANC. As you know, we got 40%, so we don’t want to blame KZN or Gauteng or any other province", is the cleanest signal that the May 29 election performance is one of the criteria used to decide on disbandment. In another comment, Gwede Mantashe retorted that the ANC cannot take a decision and leave it unattended; if the decision is to be made, it will have to wait for January.

 

Ownership of the ultimate recommendation ‘to disband or not’ means ownership of the consequences that will follow and domination of the discourse that would have engulfed the ANC towards its subsequent elective conferences, including the 2027 ‘who succeeds Ramaphosa one. The tug-of-war over who sanctions or stops the disbandment is a key point of contention, a crucial decision that will shape the inside-the-ANC political landscape. The shape of postures about renewal with or without consequence management from within the leadership echelons has made renewal so alien to members that they do not understand it and cannot defend it.  Parallel to the idea of a liberation movement consequence management practice and system is the readiness of leaders to embrace the consequences. As they say...Eish, the succession debate is with us again!!

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The revolution can't breathe; it is incomplete.

Only some political revolutions get to be completed. Because all revolutions end up with a settlement by elites and incumbents, they have become an outcome of historical moment-defined interests and less about the actual revolution. This settlement often involves a power-sharing agreement among the ruling elites and the incumbent government, which may not fully address the revolutionary goals. When the new power relations change, the new shape they take almost always comes with new challenges. As the quest for political power surpasses that of pursuing social and economic justice, alliances formed on the principles of a national revolution suffocate.    The ANC-led tripartite alliance's National Democratic Revolution is incomplete. The transfer of the totality of the power it sought to achieve still needs to be completed. While political power is arguably transferred, the checks and balances which the settlement has entrenched in the constitutional order have made the transfer...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ngcaweni and Mathebula conversation. On criticism as Love and disagreeing respectfully.

Busani Ngcaweni wrote about criticism and Love as a rendition to comrades and Comrades. His rendition triggered a rejoinder amplification of its validity by introducing  a dimension of disagreeing respectfully. This is a developing conversation and could trigger other rejoinders. The decision to think about issues is an event. Thinking is a process in a continuum of idea generation. Enjoy our first grins and bites; see our teeth. Busani Ngcaweni writes,   I have realised that criticism is neither hatred, dislike, embarrassment, nor disapproval. Instead, it is an expression of Love, hope, and elevated expectation—hope that others can surpass our own limitations and expectation that humanity might achieve greater heights through others.   It is often through others that we project what we aspire to refine and overcome. When I criticise you, I do not declare my superiority but believe you can exceed my efforts and improve.   Thus, when we engage in critici...
Post a Comment
Read more

The ANC succession era begins.

  The journey towards the 16th of December 2027 ANC National Elective Conference begins in December 2024 at the four influential regions of Limpopo Province. With a 74% outcome at the 2024 National and Provincial elections, which might have arguably saved the ANC from garnering the 40% saving grace outcome, Limpopo is poised to dictate the cadence of who ultimately succeeds Cyril Ramaphosa, the outgoing ANC President.  The ANC faces one of its existential resilience-defining sub-national conferences since announcing its inarguably illusive and ambitious renewal programme. Never has it faced a conference with weakened national voter support, an emboldened opposition complex that now has a potential alternative to itself in the MK Party-led progressive caucus and an ascending substrate of the liberal order defending influential leaders within its ranks. The ideological contest between the left and right within the ANC threatens the disintegration of its electora...
Post a Comment
Read more