There is a direct correlation between the ongoing ANC’s internal leadership race, and how the ANC will fight the 2019 general elections, writes Dumisani Hlophe.
The way the ANC’s leadership race is unfolding, will determine either the strengths or vulnerabilities of the ANC in the 2019 general election contest.
There is a direct correlation between the ongoing ANC’s internal leadership race, and how the ANC will fight the 2019 general elections. In fact, one can hasten to assume that who the ANC elects as president in December will have a direct impact on the ANC’s electoral performance in 2019.
The content and character of the ongoing leadership race is likely to be duplicated through the 2019 election campaign.
In fact, the opposition is likely to generate campaign messages against the ANC partly based on the current ANC contestation.
Factionalism marks the character and content of the unfolding ANC leadership race. For now, there are two predominant factions: one is pushing for Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and another for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
From the initial speeches made by both Dlamini Zuma and Ramaphosa, they are not speaking from the same organisational conceptual platform. Dlamini Zuma has made radical economic transformation, and quite recently, the unity of the ANC, her ticket to the throne. Ramaphosa on the other hand, has made fighting corruption, dealing with state capture, dealing with family patronage, the revival of the ANC, and the unity of the tripartite alliance his ticket to the throne.
It is not the fault of the two contenders that they are not campaigning from the same conceptual framework.
The ANC simply has not defined nor codified the ideological, conceptual policy base and parameters from which they can mount their campaigns.
This is one of the fault lines of the ANC - the inability to undertake prudent leadership and succession management.
Therefore, in the absence of an organisational framework for leadership campaigns, the factions assume centre stage. Thus, this leadership race is inherently divisive.
For instance, it is clear that the faction campaigning for Dlamini Zuma appropriates to itself and their candidate the mantra of radical economic transformation, while simultaneously disowning Ramaphosa and propagating him as a defender of white monopoly capital. The challenge for Dlamini Zuma is that the faction backing her personalises the rhetoric of radical economic transformation around President Jacob Zuma, rather than projecting it as an organisational agenda.
In doing so, they inadvertently project Dlamini Zuma’s prospective presidency as a continuation of president Zuma’s presidency. Thus, they embed her with Zuma’s associated challenges: organisational paralysis and decline, Nkandla debacle, state capture and others.
The faction campaigning for Ramaphosa capitalises on this. Hence, it has presented Ramaphosa as the leader who will clean up the organisation besieged with dysfunctionality, internal rot, corruption, internal divisions, patronage, gatekeeping, families benefiting from relatives in senior cabinet positions, and state capture.
This faction has opportunistically managed to wean Ramaphosa of collective leadership responsibility over the challenges that face the ANC.
The one exception here is the Marikana massacre, which continues to haunt
him. In presenting Ramaphosa outside the current problems of the ANC, this faction has managed to present him as a saviour and messiah of the declining ANC. Ramaphosa’s campaign is built on being the antidote of president Zuma’s regime at both the party and state level.
In the same vein, Dlamini Zuma’s is countered as a continuation of president Zuma’s regime both within the party and at state level.
In the 2019 general elections, the opposition will fight the ANC on the following issues: corruption; abuse of state power on matters such as Nkandla; Gupta family undue influence on certain cabinet members; state capture; allegations of poor management of the economy as reflected by the junk status; and poor service delivery, manifested by service delivery protests, among others.
Moreover, the ANC will have serious difficulties convincing many South African voters that the ensuing December leadership will be able to rid the ANC and the state of the ills listed above.
The main fault lines of the current ANC leadership race line in that it is not organisationally structured. Therefore, it is not based on what is in the best interest of the organisation, but factionally centred. In recent ANC history, individuals emerging as leaders driven by factions have not arisen to the level of statesmanship.
In the final analysis, the ANC faces a critical choice this December, with direct link to 2019 general elections.
On the one hand, it is a conservative outcome, akin to business as usual.
On the other hand, it is a progressive outcome with the prospects for self-regeneration, clean government and re-engineering the organisation as an agent of transformation.
How the ANC engineers this journey is up to the leadership of the factions contesting for the ANC presidency.
* Hlophe is governance specialist at the Unisa School of Governance.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.