Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2005-12-04 Reporter: Christelle Terreblanche

ANC Rivals Get Ready for Succession Battle

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent
Date

2005-12-04

Reporter

 Christelle Terreblanche

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

As Zuma's star finally fades and the 'unholy alliance' that supported him drifts apart, political attention will be focused on the future

A political realignment within the ruling ANC alliance and the break-up of the coalition that propped up Jacob Zuma are among the costs being counted as his star started to fade this week.

Also on the menu for the post-Zuma era was deep soul-searching within the ANC and each of its alliance partners about the moral nature of the party and the character of the post-transition era.

It can no longer be business as usual for the ANC, even if Zuma goes, political observers and insiders emphasised.

Whether or not the former deputy president is charged with a sexual offence, it appears that he has been sidelined as the presidential candidate of choice for a range of groups within the alliance, with two of his most vocal supporters, the South African Communist Party and Cosatu, retreating last week.

Analysts this week warned that Zuma was not yet ditched, but that the alliance partners were repositioning themselves should they have no other choice.

Others, such as veteran journalist Allister Sparks, stressed that while Zuma may well be history, the issues his popularity represented - particularly the disenchantment with Mbeki's centrist style - won't go away.

All agree, however, that the hotch-potch of alliance stakeholders which united to rebel against Zuma's ousting as party deputy at the national general council (NGC) meeting earlier this year was likely to break up.

These divergent groups - including the alliance's Left, and more right-wing nationalists, populist, traditionalists and other Mbeki critics - formed what some described as an "unholy alliance" rallying around Zuma for different reasons.

Although the cohesion is unlikely to last, the problems about Mbeki's leadership and government perceived by these groups will remain. Any new coalitions will be linked to his successor, with difficult and protracted deal-making likely to define the coming period.

A sign of this was Mbeki's absence from Cosatu's 20th anniversary celebrations this weekend, despite glowing praise of the union federation in his online letter on Friday.

While the rebellion since June 14 - when Zuma was axed as deputy president - may dissipate, it has unleashed forces at the NGC that have been simmering for nine years - from the day Mbeki unilaterally announced the Gear macro-economic policy on June 14 1996.

Professor Adam Habib, a political analyst, suggested in a recent paper that this Gear announcement was an inevitable result of our political transition and the deal made to postpone the socio-economic transition, but that it had two major consequences that gave birth to the Zuma phenomenon.

"First, it established a centralising dynamic," Habib said, "strengthened a technocratic approach, and enabled a bunch of technocrats at the centre to direct and manage this transition.

"Second, Gear divided the ruling party and opened a political struggle that continues to this day and which colours the succession."

This set the stage for the formation of opposing groups with divergent aims such as either weakening the already lame-duck Mbeki or ensuring that his economic legacy prevailed; or to propose a more people-centred presidency.

Which of them wins the day will hinge on finding the most suitable and widely acceptable candidate for succession around which they can rally.

Signs that the different Zuma stakeholders were going their own way was evident, for instance, from a number of recent discussion papers, notably those from Jeremy Cronin and Mazibuko Jara of the South African Communist Party, which made a clear case for delinking a pro-poor Left agenda from Zuma's black economic empowerment (BEE) and nationalist backers.

A more unified Left agenda was also manifesting in increasing links with Left groups outside the tripartite alliance; and in Cosatu's drive to bring civil society into its campaigns.

However, most analysts were sceptical of a broader Left front converging and said that such an agenda was only possible should a suitable succession candidate be found. This was despite the alliance partners protesting last week that they wanted no part in the king-making process.

Zuma's vocal ANC Youth League supporters are more likely to stick to the ANC than the Left, and to be faced with the same battles to find a compromise candidate as Mbeki's supporters and the BEE elite - someone with a more inclusive leadership style, particularly towards the alliance partners.

Judith February, an analyst at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), stressed that it would be up to the ANC and its national executive to contain the turbulence expected after the the post-Zuma realignment.

"The ANC is now left with organisational issues that transcend individuals," she said. "It is about the morality of the organisation and the kind of leadership [sought] in the succession battle.

"Will it continue to be self-seeking or are we going to see a shift in the ANC where a new kind of morality of approaching public office prevails? What will define the ANC and what type of leader and values does it want to instill?"

The frank organisational report in June of Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC general secretary, acknowledged that the ANC and its alliance was dysfunctional on many levels.

February said the remedy was "transparent, open and sufficient debate" within the alliance and broader society "to keep the ANC accountable and exercise sufficient internal party democracy" while "drawing people actively into the succession debate".

With acknowledgement to Christelle Terreblanche and Sunday Independent.