By Onkgopotse Tabane
Why did the opposition in South Africa fail to make any headway into the support base of the ANC after 1994? It all boils down to history and heritage. The ANC has created a loyalty base based on a certain amount of entitlement to the claim that it has liberated South Africa.
But you need to take a moment to reflect that the ANC did not become a broad church by mistake. It tapped into civil society - many sectors of our society - to be able to lead a revolution that resulted in the liberation of our people in 1994.
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When it came to power it marginalised all of these civil society friends, including the tripartite alliance. They are now rising up to support the birth of the first real political competitor in the new South Africa. Yes, even the SACP and Cosatu are doing their bit to build the Congress of the People (COPE) by intimidating members and making reckless policy pronouncements on behalf of government and the ANC. They are doing their bit to make the ordinary person run scared of an ANC hijacked using a communist agenda.
Very few of the opposition parties that exist today can claim the same liberation mantle. Suddenly for the first time in 15 years a group of people who were part of that struggle, who have similar credentials to the leadership of the ANC, can now contest the ANC on a similar and even better platform.
They cannot be easily dismissed as peacetime heroes or, as one ANC leader patently lied, be accused of having joined the ANC after 1990. The ANC has gone into panic mode for a good reason. If Cope is no threat at all, the ANC must explain why it is abusing the courts to oppose names that have not been registered; why it is blocking registration of domain names all over the place, including attempting to intimidate the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office officials to reveal names of people who are registering various aspects of the Cope identity. It would be interesting to understand why parallel rallies and events are being organised in an attempt to dislodge this "non-threat".
At the level of leadership of the ANC, it is really embarrassing that state institutions are being used to intimidate people from participating in the activities of a political movement yet to be launched formally. At the community level, ANC members are not being stopped by their leadership from disrupting Cope events. Statements of condemnation are being issued after the fact to create a false impression of tolerance: the public is not fooled by this manifestation of ANC intolerance.
Employers are being harassed into forbidding staff from participating and many examples of businesses being intimidated from supporting the new party are being reported on ongoing basis.
The most glaring was the ANC Youth League's embarrassing public face-off with one of South Africa's biggest banks. The ANC has reason to fear because it can no longer claim a monopoly of struggle credentials. It was easy for the ANC to dismiss Bantu Holomisa in the '90s and laugh off the PAC in 1959: that laughing period is set to come to an abrupt end on April 2009.
But there is more. Cope is set to mobilise those members of society who supported the ANC with the hope that it would be a custodian of their hopes and aspirations.
Hundreds who were never interested in politics are eager to sign up as members.
Its membership base is set to exceed that of the ANC by far. Has anyone in the ANC even thought of this … or is their arrogance reaching fever pitch?
Many people from all walks of life who jammed into the convention centre to take a stand against what was increasingly becoming a one-party state cannot be dismissed as the elite. In fact there were very few elitists who would jam into taxis and buses and even sleep in the streets just to attend a convention that was meant to send a strong message to the ANC that the honeymoon is over. More than 50 000 members in the Eastern Cape alone registered as members - not mere supporters - of Cope in the first week after the convention.
Similar trends are emerging in the Free State, Northern Cape and the Western Cape where whole branches and structures of the ANC have all but collapsed with entire membership crossing over to Cope - a story that will shock many when it is told on December 16. If the membership base is an indication of how communities surrounding those members are going to vote, the ANC must worry, not panic and start stealing ideas from the new movement as was the case with the so-called manifesto campaign.
At the convention a call was made for people to go back to their communities and report back as well as gather feedback about what the policies of the new party should be. There was nothing innovative, therefore about the ANC calling on the public to comment on its manifesto. It was pure theft of an idea whose time has come. Good for them, though, the public may just tell them what they have been refusing to hear all these years: Modernise; stop corruption in your ranks; stop being so arrogant and maybe you will hold on to some of your power.
Respect the constitution, discipline and mentor your youth leaders and, for goodness' sake, have tolerance for opposing views both within and without the ANC.
The leaders of Cope must not apologise for having been part of the struggle. That heritage does not merely belong to the ANC, it belongs to all people of South Africa in their various political persuasions. The Pan African Congress the United Democratic Movement, even the Independent Democrats. All of them have a claim to a contribution to the struggle. To wake up and think you can erase them from history is the kind of arrogance that will see the ANC out of power sooner than many an analyst can predict.
And those who could not care less about who owns what part of history are joining Cope in droves in search of inclusivity, rather than the party of only the privileged exiles and Robben Islanders. It seems to me the ANC cannot cope with this reality: what they will do next to hold on to power, only God knows.
Onkgopotse JJ Tabane is a media commentator and communications specialist. He writes in his personal capacity.
- This article was originally published on page 12 of The Star on November 18, 2008
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