In this year of Comrade OR Tambo, with the ANC slogan “Let Us Deepen Unity”, and a political reality of deep divisions and tensions within the party, for us as members to be concerned about unity is legitimate. However, the concept of unity can be used and abused.
Recently, we’ve heard a lot of talk from two of the tripartite alliance partners about unity. Cosatu and the SACP hardly open their mouths in public but for the word “unity” to find its way into their utterances.
Metaphorically speaking, they have clothed themselves in the shining armour of unity and, like Don Quixote, they storm one political windmill after the other.
The purpose of their apparent heroic commitment to unity is to make as many of us believe that they are the only ones who can
save the ANC from collapse and our country from the resulting political chaos.
They also want to make us believe that, in contrast, President Jacob Zuma and those aligned
with him, are the ones dividing
the ANC.
In this narrative they have been abetted by most of the mainstream media, who in tune with the desires of their white monopoly capital owners and paymasters have been relentless in their attacks on Zuma - not so much because of personal antipathy, but because they fear his policy positions with regard to radical economic transformation and his determination to implement them.
It is sad that those who call themselves communists have become revisionist to the extent that they now have such bedfellows. Their behaviour has become downright reactionary and counter-revolutionary. They have become the enemy within that Comrade Tambo had so many times warned us against.
At the Morogoro Conference he said: “Comrades, the enemy hidden inside in the same colour is the most dangerous one.”
He proceeded with the following call: “Delegates must wage a relentless war against disrupters and defend the ANC against the provocateurs and enemy agents. Defend the revolution against enemy propaganda, whatever form it takes.”
In the case of Cosatu and the SACP, they trashed the decades-long traditions of the tripartite alliance that acknowledge the ANC as the leader, and allowed organisations within the alliance the autonomy to determine who they democratically choose to be their leaders.
In the name of unity and professed calls to “save the revolution”, these two organisations took the extraordinary step to ban the president of the ANC from attending or addressing any of their meetings, and to refuse to participate in alliance meetings that Zuma presides over.
Not only this, they proceeded to invite the ANC national executive committee members to whom they prefer to address their meetings, and in the presence of those NEC members launched the most vicious attacks against Zuma and called for his immediate and undemocratic removal as president of the ANC and of the country.
Outrageous as such behaviour is, they then proceed to attack any loyal ANC member who complains about lack of discipline and calls on them to raise whatever concerns they may have within the constitutional and democratic organisational structures of the ANC.
Disciplined ANC members are attacked in a personally vicious manner, and nothing is off-bounds - even physical disabilities, such as in the case of the president of the MK Veterans, Comrade Kebby Maphatsoe, who lost his arm as a soldier, are callously used to attack and made sickening jokes about.
Disciplined ANC comrades who call them to order are called every conceivable name, and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption are thrown at them.
Contrary to the traditions of the tripartite alliance, the SACP now insists it must have equal say concerning decisions of the alliance, and as part of this aberration rejects the democratically elected president of the ANC - but still insists that such behaviour is not “factional”.
Even worse, it tries to blackmail the ANC by threatening that if its preferred candidate for the ANC presidency is not elected, the SACP will withdraw from the alliance and contest the 2019 national election separately from the ANC - somehow this is also not “factional”.
As Comrade Harry Gwala used to say, it is a sorry sight to behold when politics leaves comrades and they become empty, noisy tins blown about by the whirlwinds of personal expediency.
The latest expression of such expediency was for the SACP to call Zuma “factional” for having carried out his constitutional prerogative to make changes to the national executive.
They seem to be outraged that their general secretary Blade Nzimande, who under-performed dismally as Minister of Higher Education, was replaced.
It is not for me to try and second-guess the president’s reasons for dropping Nzimande from the national executive, but to my mind Nzimande’s failure to address the legitimate call for free and quality education adequately and his arrogance and inability to find rapport with the student leadership of the #FeesMustFall movement should be more than enough reason.
I would like to dare anyone to show me any organisation where someone who serves at the behest of the leader of the organisation, and who behaves in the manner that Nzimande does, will be allowed to stay on.
Reluctant as he evidently was to act against Nzimande, and keen as he is to work for the preservation of the unity of the alliance, the president’s hand was forced to such an extent that he no longer had any other option but to act.
In having done so, to now call the president’s decision “factional” - while you have done everything possible to be ill-disciplined and factional - is truly disingenuous. Really, the SACP must not insult our political intelligence.
Nor must those who advance a-historical and undemocratic arguments in favour of an arranged hand-over of the presidency to their preferred candidate insult our political intelligence.
Unsurprisingly, those who claim that there is a so-called tradition in the ANC that the deputy president takes over from the president, and that if this does not happen at the national elective conference it will lead to chaos, find common cause with the arguments and conduct of the SACP and Cosatu.
Yet they know very well that they talk poppycock that in the 105-year history of the ANC any such tradition exists, and if they genuinely do not know we must ask ourselves how well-rooted they really are in the history and traditions of the ANC.
They should also know that Clause 12.3.1 of the constitution of the ANC states that: “The president, deputy president, national chairperson, the secretary-general and the treasurer-general will be elected separately by the national conference (my emphasis).”
I presume that Comrade Gwede Mantashe, as secretary-general of the ANC, knows our constitution - it is really not conceivable that, being in such a senior position, he would not.
We are a grassroots democratic organisation which belongs to the members of our branches.
The branches democratically elect delegates and send them to our national elective conferences to elect our presidents and national executive committee members.
Not honouring this democratic tradition and to call for the ANC leadership to “manage” the leadership succession is an outrage.
It is even more of an outrage to refer to the 105-year existence of the ANC to argue against a democratic process to elect our leaders, and to equate the democratic process to being “accidental leadership succession”.
How can the secretary-general of the ANC, who as the most senior administrator has the duty to oversee the democratic processes through the branch general meetings and regional general meetings, call our well-established democratic traditions “accidental”?
This is intolerable, and Comrade Gwede Mantashe really has a duty to clarify his comments and refrain from such comments that are alien to the ANC.
The true democrats in the ANC, who still believe in the Freedom Charter and its covenant to all South Africans that “The People Shall Govern, and that all the
People Shall Share in the Wealth of Our Country”, should never allow this counter-revolutionary scenario to unfold.
All ANC members who truly care about our democratic organisation must now demand that the current leaders in the ANC, as well as those who are candidates for the presidency of the ANC, accept the democratic processes that are now unfolding in the run-up to the national elective conference in December.
Such commitment must include an undertaking that they will not try to cause any tensions to derail the conference, and that they will accept democracy and not try to arrange undemocratic leadership successions/handovers.
Most importantly, that they will accept the democratic outcome of the conference regardless of whether they win or lose.
They must convince us, whom they want to vote for them, that their candidatures are not about power-mongering but about service to the ANC and especially to our people. Whoever wins must lead with the intention to serve, and whoever loses must follow also with the intention to serve.
Furthermore, all candidates must now commit upfront that if they lose they will stay inside and work for the unity and the advancement of the movement.
This commitment should be the ultimate litmus test about whether a candidate is worthy of making himself or herself available to lead the ANC.
Comrade Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has committed herself without any hesitation to this - we have the right to demand from the other candidates to do the same.
* Niehaus is a former national executive committee member of the ANC and an NEC member of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.