As the ANC main body waits for Zuma to declare a successor, the leagues descend into turmoil, writes Susan Booysen.
The broader ANC body, including the leagues and alliance partners, in President Jacob Zuma’s tenure has moved from a state of “genie out of the bottle” to Wild West shootout.
Between the lines the war doubles as a platform for succession stratagems. Battles rage in the tripartite alliance. Cosatu is in a no-win conundrum; the youth and women’s leagues flirt with collapse. The veterans deserve no mention.
The ANC’s main body battles to balance its positioning for post-Zuma political life with waiting for the leader to reveal his own succession hand, not recognising that not revealing it, amid the ANC wars, is the strategy. This analysis explores the league and tripartite alliance combat of the last week and considers what they reveal about the ANC.
The tripartite alliance has always been a hotbed rather than a cosy union. Contest, its lifeblood, added to the broad church and internal opposition. Zuma, however, is a president more sensitive to challenges than Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki was touchy about tripartite critiques. He stonewalled the SACP and Cosatu. He elevated his chosen circle of cabinet confidantes over the executive committee and alliance partners.
The two alliance partners were excluded. They contemplated revenge, to the point of lifting Mbeki from power. In the process they imagined they were delivering a definitive push to the left. However, Zuma had power designs rather than ideological plans.
Allegations of plots and vendettas carried Zuma into power. Enemy forces were out to thwart the victory, his camp argued. Their efforts to protect the gains had to include the defence of the president on all fronts, personal and professional. In effect, all state resources under ANC control were mobilised.
The culture became contagious. Appointed and self-appointed commissars took over the defence of the president – on all fronts, and irrespective of evidence that demanded that the president be called to order.
There was no place for criticism of the president. Cosatu as a unified and powerful labour union fell; the SACP as a credible internal opposition voice tumbled too. The women’s and youth leagues fell into playground brawls.
The falling out of the two labour factions, mini-Cosatu and the Numsa-ists, epitomises decline in the time of Zuma. The challengers this week effectively gave up the battle for the first prize – to win the shell of Cosatu.
The battle was on a knife’s edge. One week it was tilting in favour of the Numsa-Vavi challengers – one court judgment confirmed that the special national congress (SNC) would be held next month.
The next court judgment – this week in the South Gauteng High Court – in effect ordained that Numsa will not be at the SNC. The rationale for an SNC virtually lapsed.
The ordinary Cosatu national congress of November offers no guarantees of Numsa’s reintegration (and dominance). Momentum around a potential alternative labour federation will be sustained with difficulty: the next few weeks is probably a now-or-never for new labour formation: Consult the memberships of the eight unions sympathetic to Numsa-Vavi; get a break and get it definitively – or retreat.
No one wants to get the non-Cosatu end of the stick, or wants the responsibility for breaking (what remains of) the federation. All know that life remains cold outside the broader ANC fold – even if Cosatu is nowadays but a mere miniature. Take as illustration the woes of the women’s league and youth league: they became Zuma-loyal platforms but peace did not follow.
Members and regions are turning on one another in pursuit of personalised interests. Just to complete a national congress is a struggle.
The “Alliance Summit” is still pending, proposed as a lockdown event by Zuma. Can it reverse the years of scorched-earth struggle for Cosatu ownership? It may be the last chance, but as Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa hinted, there is little chance of a viable compromise between recalcitrant warriors.
To control Cosatu the Zuma people dabbled with, and probably succeeded in bringing on, a split. The belated piecing together of Cosatu will bring more mock than sagacity.
The women’s and youth leagues are safely (roughly so, for now) in the fold of the Zuma ANC. They deliver a signature battle of the time: the struggles within the Zuma-approved or anointed ANC clubs to locate themselves in existing and potentially new patronage lines.
The battles are personalised versions of the old struggles. They are about “what is good for me and my followers”; there is little sense of fighting for the national interest.
As the leagues approach their national congress, lead Zumaists reprimand the women’s league for factionalism and infighting. Party bigwigs and task-team leaders Jessie Duarte, Lindiwe Sisulu, Thulas Nxesi and Thoko Didiza helped edge them towards the two-years-late national conference.
The women’s league has seven of its nine provincial general councils done. No date, however. In a statement this week, it said: “We have had to set aside adequate time and (get) systems in place at an operational level and clear all disputes ahead of the conference.”
With euphemisms riding high noon, the league explains that its provincial structures need space to resolve queries arising from the branch biennial general meetings and branch general meetings.
The league is now essentially a lobby group on select women’s issues, including abuse and ukuhlola. The broad national issues are not central to its agenda.
Social Security Minister Bathabile Dlamini, a consistent Zuma associate, appears likely to make the league’s presidential cut.
She would be a safe bet: the president will sit out his dual presidential terms. If Zuma slips in a woman candidate as successor, the compliant league will claim victory.
The youth league’s long-awaited congress (aborted by national leadership in 2014) is around the corner.
The abort action came when the congress appeared to move against Luthuli House’s leadership and/or policy wishes. Youth league caretaker Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced this week that NEC member Pule Mabe, seemingly the Zuma ANC’s favourite, qualifies to contest despite age disqualification.
Last year he still had fraud and money-laundering charges concerning Social Security Agency funds pending. At year-end a specialised commercial crimes court withdrew charges, arguing insufficient state evidence to pursue the case.
Now, at 35 Mabe has reached the cut-off age for youth league membership. The congress could very well start with a legal challenge.
Could the Zumaists trust the other candidates? At the aborted 2014 congress, Zuma equated obedience to the Zumaists with patriotism, challenging the youth league participants, “Why are you not defending the ANC? I want more of you to come out and defend the ANC.”
There are small signs of willingness to think beyond the Zuma epoch, but protagonists who dare raise their heads know that Zumaists are taking aim.
*Booysen is professor at the Wits School of Governance. Wits Press is to publish her new book, Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma, later this year.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Sunday Independent