The violence stems from fear Thoko Didiza will dismantle feeding troughs for some party cadres, writes Mogomotsi Magome.
Pretoria - The so-called unrest that engulfed Tshwane this week cannot be understood without honestly addressing the elephant in the room; the entrenched patronage networks that come with political, administrative power in the city.
The Pretoria News must be credited for the outstanding journalism that continues to expose the details behind the violence that has been incorrectly framed by many as a fight for a heroic mayor to be retained in his position and a tribalistic dislike for his potential successor.
This is far from reality.
Throughout his tenure as executive mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa has been a likeable, impressive but equally divisive figure in the politics of this region.
His meteoric rise as one of the ANC’s own “clever blacks” - with an educated background and commendable track record as an executive in the private sector - made him a dream for an elite inherently suspicious of the ANC’s deployed cadres.
His demonstrable understanding of governance and administration at this level put the private sector at ease while his youthful charm and eloquence made him a media darling.
To many he was perfect as the executive mayor of the capital, but there have always been doubts about his prowess as a leader of the ANC in the region. The same characteristics that endeared him to some sectors of the capital also alienated him from those who viewed him as an educated, black middle-class who neither shared their aspirations nor understood their reality.
That he is from Atteridgeville also created perceptions, although most likely far from being truthful, that he was looking after his own.
While the administrator described above is almost desirable for a politically administrative position like that of an executive mayor of a capital city, with the politics of the ANC it works out a little differently.
One need only to look at President Jacob Zuma as an example - he is far from being an administrative genius but those familiar with the ANC will attest to his political shrewdness.
Ramokgopa became leader of the ANC in the region just before Tshwane was merged with Metsweding and Dinokeng tsa Taemane municipalities, east of Tshwane, to make it the biggest metro on the continent.
This merger also affected ANC structures, which had to include ANC branches from these areas as one single region.
His immediate task was to unite these structures at an ANC level and manage the municipal merger.
This, of course, saw some politicians from these areas landing plum jobs in his administration and some councillors wielding some power in the city.
However, subsequent factional divisions and infightings that have continued since that merger, and which have often spilled over into the workings of the municipality, suggest he did an average job at this.
Lest we forget that when he was elected for the second term as the ANC’s regional chairman in Tshwane, a significant part of the region’s structures rejected him and held their own parallel, regional conference at the Justice College in the inner city.
The ANC in Tshwane has never really recovered from this, with the mess that became of its regional youth league structure and the divisions inside the regional executive committee he led making things worse.
But his ascendance to the mayoral position, like with many such positions, was also riddled with internal lobbying and manoeuvring motivated by the establishment of new patronage networks.
Those who supported him to the powerful position anticipated to benefit from his appointment - at stake were, among others, positions for mayoral committee members, high-ranking municipal officials and bid committee positions - as they are again at stake now.
There was urgency for this to happen.
Under Ramokgopa’s leadership, his predecessor and aunt Dr Gwen Ramokgopa spent the remaining period of her tenure as a lame-duck executive mayor.
So intense was this that one of Kgosientso’s most trusted lieutenants at the time was appointed to a powerful position in the private office of the then mayor to keep her in check.
These are the realities of the instability that accompanies leadership changes where appointments to political positions mean a disruption to patronage networks - it is not a Ramokgopa or Mapiti Matsena issue.
It is unfathomable that card-carrying members of the ANC, who are supposedly learned in the history of the ANC, would question Thoko Didiza’s credentials, or reduce her to a mere Zulu speaker.
It is equally scandalous that the same ANC members have overnight become oblivious to the ANC’s democratic centralism, which has seen the national leadership using a compromise candidate to diffuse an otherwise potentially damaging leadership battle.
It seems long ago now but in 1991, Walter Sisulu became a compromise candidate at the ANC national conference to diffuse a loaded and potentially explosive leadership contest between Thabo Mbeki and Chris Hani.
There is nothing new about the nature of Didiza’s appointment.
The truth is the entrenched networks are likely to be dismantled by Didiza’s appointment, as she hardly owes any of the Tshwane cadres loyalty for propelling her to the mayoral position.
This has little to do with service delivery or “the people”, who apparently love the incumbent so much that they voted him into power with a 56% margin, 7% short of needing a coalition to govern.
What needs to be addressed urgently by the ANC is the manner in which deployments are not only about the delivery of its relevant mandate, but also about who gets to benefit based on their proximity to the corridors of power.
It is a problem that the ANC can no longer only acknowledge, but that it has to somehow remove from its DNA.
Pretoria News