Political Overview

A period of renewal of our values and practices

The implementation of the resolutions taken at the ANC 52nd National Conference in Polokwane takes us a step further towards the ANC centenary celebrations in 2012. The centenary must find us in a state where we truly live the description of the movement made in our conference resolutions.

We said that: "Over the 95 years of the existence of the ANC, the movement evolved into a force for mass mobilisation, a glue that held our people together, and a trusted leader of the broadest range of social forces that share the vision of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa."

In the Secretary General's Organisational Report to Polokwane, we called upon the incoming NEC to initiate a period of renewal of the values, character and organisational practices of the movement.

We made this call on the basis of the evaluation made in the report on the state of the organisation, and an analysis of the key challenges that the organisation faced. We discussed in that report some of the practices that have manifested themselves in the organisation in recent times. Some of these related to the leadership contest that took place in the build up to, and during, Polokwane. Others have far deeper roots in the conditions the organisation has operated in following the advent of democracy.

We said, among other things, that:

• The ANC is not, has never been and will never be a faction.
• When elected leaders at the highest level openly engage in factionalist activity, where is the movement that aims to unite the people of South Africa for the complete liberation of the country from all forms of discrimination and national oppression?
• When money changes hands in the battle for personal power and aggrandisement, where is the movement that is built around a membership that joins without motives of material advantage and personal gain?
• When the members of the ANC themselves engage in factionalist activity, media leaks and rumour mongering, how can we expect the membership of our movement to carry out their duties to observe discipline, behave honestly and carry out loyally the decision of the majority and the decision of higher bodies?

We have spoken before of the impact of the leadership contest on the organisation, on the national leadership of the organisation and on the unity and coherence of the movement.

The task that faces this leadership is how to initiate, guide and sustain this period of renewal. This is not a task we can approach lightly. It is fundamental to repairing, rebuilding, strengthening and uniting the organisation as we undertake the programme outlined by the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) lekgotla in January.

It is critical that we act decisively and with determination on this matter. If not, the current NEC will find itself at the end of its term of office having to report exactly the same problems that were identified in Stellenbosch, at the NGC in Tshwane, and in Polokwane. We need to affirm the values, culture and political traditions of the movement.

No more labels

During the course of preparations for Polokwane, and in particular as part of a fiercely contested leadership election process, there was a tendency even within the leadership to define comrades according to whatever views or positions they may have taken, or perceived to have taken.

Comrades were grouped together and assigned some sort of label, in most cases to undermine or discredit them. One of the consequences of this is that leaders of the movement, cadres with a wealth of experience, political understanding and organisational depth, are reduced in the eyes of the comrades to merely being representatives of one or other faction.

If we allow this to continue, we would see a situation where some comrades' views could be disregarded because they bore the wrong label. Their contribution would be viewed with suspicion.

We would have replaced the dynamic and open political debate that is a hallmark of our movement with a sterile contest between set positions of different groupings. The task we face as this NEC is to ensure that this practice of labelling comrades ends. This is politically unhealthy, and organisationally destructive. We need to attend to the immediate task of consolidating the leadership of the movement at all levels. We cannot afford a situation where some leaders of our movement are, as a consequence, left outside of the programmes and activities of the organisation.

If we are to successfully implement our conference programme, and advance the National Democratic Revolution, we need to harness the experience, energies, skills and knowledge of all our cadres. We have a great many tried and tested leaders of our movement, some of whom are in the NEC and others not. It is essential that all of them are part of the life of the movement.

Conference has given us the responsibility to harness the collective abilities of all seasoned cadres to build the organisation. It has mandated us to heal whatever divisions may have occurred within the organisation.

This NEC needs to give some thought to how, in practical terms, we should go about fulfilling this responsibility. The period of renewal must involve a thorough report back to our structures on the deliberations and outcomes of the Polokwane conference.

It is important that we communicate this directly to our members so that they can understand and internalise the decisions of Polokwane, and do not need to rely on media coverage to form their views of what happened.

We need to put in place, as a matter of urgency, a nationwide political education programme, that focuses on the politics and values of the ANC. The members of the NEC, supported by members of the Provincial Executive Committees (PECs), need to undertake that political education programme.

Mass campaigns

Most importantly, we need to implement the mass campaigns agreed upon at the lekgotla. The best form of unity is unity in action. The best way to develop political consciousness is to engage comrades in political work. We have identified a number of priority issues on which we need to campaign among the masses, namely education, health, crime and electricity. We need to properly structure and sequence these campaigns, using the campaigning techniques we put to such good effect during elections. These campaigns must have clear objectives and be understood by all members.

All leaders at all levels and all public representatives should be deployed in a systematic manner to do mass work. It will assist us to reach the target we are setting ourselves, to reach the year 2012 with a membership of one million or more.

In his report to conference, the Secretary General noted the volunteer work of hundreds of thousands of ANC members during the election campaigns of 2004 and 2006. He said the volunteerism demonstrated that the membership joined the ANC not in order to achieve selfish reward, but to serve their nation and their community in the struggle for a better life. We will need a revival of this spirit of volunteerism as we fight to increase our majority in the coming elections.

Political centre

We have said that the ANC is the strategic political centre, and have agreed on the need to affirm this principle in approaching the strategic tasks of deploying cadres to various centres of power. But we need to ask what this means in practice. How do we reaffirm the ANC as the strategic political centre, and what responsibilities does that place on the leadership?

Are we equipped to provide strategic leadership to the many processes that ANC cadres are leading across society - in national departments, Parliament, local councils, chambers of commerce, trade unions, community organisations, schools and institutions of higher learning? It is not enough to distribute the Polokwane resolutions, the January 8th statement and the NEC Bulletin and expect the cadres to lead the fundamental transformation of society in a coherent, coordinated and effective manner.

These are some of the questions we need to confront. We must develop a clear sense of what we need to do in the immediate period to initiate a process of renewal and regeneration within the movement.

Despite all the difficulties, we emerged from Polokwane determined to strive tirelessly to rebuild and strengthen this movement. Going forward will therefore not be a difficult task. Working on our renewal programme, we will be underscoring the fact that the unity of the ANC is paramount. There is only one ANC, which we should all serve to the best of our ability.

** Jacob Zuma is President of the ANC. This is an extract from political overview presented to the ANC National Executive Committee meeting in Ekurhuleni, 14 March 2008.

The ANC and its leaders

Respect the decisions of the ANC's membership

Last Sunday, the installation of His Grace the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, was celebrated at a ceremony in St George's Cathedral, attended by a number of dignitaries and well-wishers.

Like the Anglican Church, which elected Archbishop Makgoba to occupy this august position, the African National Congress (ANC) also has a right to choose its own leaders as it sees fit.

It is therefore disappointing that Professor Barney Pityana, an ordained Anglican minister and currently Vice Chancellor of UNISA, should dismiss so readily the capacity of ANC members to determine who should lead them. Pityana was speaking at Stellenbosch earlier this week.

What is good for the Anglican Church, as with any other institution in society, should be good for the ANC. Instead, Pityana pours scorn on the democratically expressed wishes of the delegates to the ANC National Conference in Polokwane. Perhaps if he were to recall the path his own life has taken, he wouldn't be so dismissive of the general membership of the ANC.

A respected student activist in the 1970s, a contemporary of Steve Biko, Pityana went into exile, where he studied theology, and served as a parish priest in Britain. Perhaps he should be reminded that it was these very ANC members who took up the fight inside the country against the hated apartheid regime, creating the conditions that allowed people like Pityana to return from exile and take up important positions in academia.

Is it too much to ask that Pityana now accords these masses the right to choose their own leader?

Is it too much to ask that the head of South Africa's largest university make a bit more effort to understand and interpret the political features of the present? Should we not demand more of those who are held up as the leading intellectuals in our society?

For if Barney Pityana had applied a bit more intellectual rigour in his assessment of the African National Congress (ANC) since Polokwane he may have arrived at conclusions somewhat closer to reality.

Put aside for the moment that his statements about ANC President Jacob Zuma are unnecessarily personal and deeply offensive. His comments betray a view of South African politics that owes more to a decent stock of press cuttings than it does to independent and incisive analysis.

Though he provides some useful insights into the South Africa of today and tomorrow, when it comes to the current ANC leadership, and particularly its President, Pityana is content merely to parrot what now passes for 'conventional wisdom'.

We wish to challenge some of his assertions, not because we wish to silence dissenting views (in fact, his views are more representative of the norm). Rather we wish to join the "argumentative lot" that Pityana calls South Africans. We don't want to shut down debate. We want to open it up, and engage in it more vigorously.

We share with Pityana his concern at the position of intellectuals in our society. We agree with him that intellectual capacity cultivates a critical mentality "that refuses to take anything for granted".

But we disagree that intellectuals are treated with scorn and disregard by the new "political elite". Intellectuals have played, and continue to play, a pivotal role in the struggle for liberation, not as armchair critics who dismiss with condescension the views of the masses, but as thinkers who are prepared to engage critically with the most challenging issues in our society.

Champion of justice

Pityana speaks in glowing terms about the constitution and the law, and correctly so. Together, they serve to uphold the values of our democratic society, they protect the rights of all citizens without fear or favour, and they curb abuse of power.

Yet, while proclaiming himself a champion of justice, Pityana ignores some of the basic principle of justice in his assessment of ANC President Jacob Zuma. By describing Zuma as "a flawed character in his moral conduct" who has been indicted for serious crimes that involve corruption and dishonesty", Pityana finds himself guilty of hypocrisy.

A basic principle of justice, enshrined in our constitution, is that all should be equal before the law. Another crucial principle is that an accused shall be presumed innocent until and unless found otherwise. Pityana doesn't think that these principles apply to Jacob Zuma.

If, like other citizens, Zuma is to be presumed innocent, then it is not correct to assign to him characteristics of corruptness, dishonesty and flawed moral conduct. There is no such thing as a partial presumption of innocence. A person is either presumed innocent, or not.

Had Pityana been more thorough in investigating what he describes as the ANC President's policy "flip-flops", by looking behind the headlines and press reports, he would have discovered not only that Zuma has been consistent in his pronouncements, but that he has all along asserted the agreed ANC policy positions. And Pityana's analysis is the poorer for it.

The ANC fully agrees with Pityana that anyone aspiring to become a head of state "must understand the obligation that binds one to honour the spirit and the letter of the Constitution; to order their personal conduct as if it is an open constitutional text, to internalise its precepts as binding on one's life". Yet no ANC leader, least of all its president, has acted in a manner that would suggest otherwise.

Had he paid more attention, Pityana would not have made baseless claims to the effect that the ANC Youth League had confronted the Deputy President of the Constitutional Court. Nor would he have suggested that the ANC had questioned the integrity of judges. It has not and will not.

Had he paid more attention, Pityana would have noticed that the newly-elected National Executive Committee (NEC) has moved swiftly to implement the decisions of Polokwane. It has moved quickly to shift the organisation into campaign gear, having identified the need for mass work around health, education, electricity, crime, and rural development and agrarian reform. These campaigns are all in the process of being launched.

He would have noticed also that this "new" ANC leadership is composed of a people who have been leaders of the movement for years. Jacob Zuma has served as an Official of the organisation for close on 20 years. Others have been in the NEC itself for a number of terms.

The leadership has moved with determination to build the unity and cohesion of the movement, stressing the need to heal the divisions that emerged in the period before Conference. Instead of "settling scores", as Pityana claims, all leaders and members have responded positively to the call.

In its first 100 days, the ANC has dispelled some of the fears expressed about the relationship between the ANC and its government, and the capacity of government to continue in the implementation of its mandate.

The ANC's agenda is not determined by the "see-saw game of upmanship" that Pityana describes. It is determined by the organisation's membership, expressed through a wide-ranging democratic process. We would have hoped that Pityana had the integrity to acknowledge that principle, and the intellectual curiosity to find out what lies behind the headlines.

** Kgalema Motlanthe is Deputy President of the ANC. This article first appeared in The Star newspaper, 3 April 2008.

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