Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2006-01-08 Reporter: Brendan Boyle

Taking Us to Our New Leader

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2006-01-08

Reporter

Brendan Boyle

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

There is a political crisis in South Africa and it is linked to the battle to succeed Thabo Mbeki as leader of the ANC and, perhaps separately, as South African president. The Sunday Times invited five political analysts and one politician to discuss the crisis, its causes and its consequences. Brendan Boyle gives us an interpretative summary of the discussion

[]While the panel rejected as simplistic the view that an individual could determine the success or failure of South Africa’s democracy project, they acknowledged that personality could be influential[]

Taking Aim
A supporter pretends to shoot a weapon and dances to a struggle war song after former Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s appearance at the Durban Magistrate’s Court in November on charges of corruption. Zuma also faces a charge of rape Picture: Greg Marinovich

The unresolved showdown between President Thabo Mbeki and his would-be successor, Jacob Zuma, has bared the soul of South African politics in the second decade of liberation.

The clash has drawn a crowd and there is something to be proud of how the nation has handled the spectacle of the two most powerful political leaders slugging it out. Voices have been raised in the stands, but seldom fists.

Overwhelmingly, the fight exposes trends and weaknesses that demand action to put transition back on track. The ANC is becoming estranged from its mass base, discipline is being cited to silence diversity and the leadership is deaf to the clamour for debate about economic and social policies.

A panel convened by the Sunday Times to review the state of the battle for succession in the ruling ANC concluded that Zuma’s struggle to stay in contention for the presidency is more a proxy battle about the political and economic trajectory than a personal duel.

He may want the job, but the support he gets is based mainly on what he is against.

The public and media focus has been on Zuma’s suitability to be president and his assumed role as an iconic leader of leftist ideology. The real target of the conflict is the centrist development strategy chosen by the government and condoned by the party leadership.

On the outcome of the showdown hinge the character, if not the name of the next president, the depth of South Africa’s future democracy, the direction of its macroeconomic policy and the strength of the institutions set up to protect its values, the panel concluded.

Judith February, manager of the governance unit of the Institute for Democracy (Idasa), moderated the discussion last month with Steven Friedman of the Centre for Policy Studies, former Speaker Frene Ginwala, a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC, and independent analysts Aubrey Matshiqi, Adam Habib and Protas Madlala.

Friedman, Ginwala, Matshiqi and Habib participated in a similar discussion a year earlier, when the focus was on the likely impact of the then pending trial of Zuma’s financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.

No one forecast then that Zuma would end the year facing two trials, but they did predict that the succession would turn nasty.

“There will be all sorts of vague documents that will appear, forged or real,” ANC veteran Ginwala said in prescient anticipation of the current row about apparently forged e-mail exchanges between party leaders.

This time, the discussion was about the causes and consequences of the 2005 political crisis and about the character of the party and national leadership.

No one was willing to rule Zuma entirely out of contention, but most considered his chances dramatically reduced by the criminal charges he faces later this year. Some felt, however, that his supporters might retain the power to veto a candidate who did not reflect their interests.

Someone like Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the new champion of Mbeki’s pro-market economics, was unlikely to get past a refocused Zuma camp.

The first leadership decision for the ANC comes up late next year with the election of a new party president and National Executive Council. Whether that president will go on to become national president in 2009 remains unclear.

Habib was adamant that the ANC would come around to a decision that the same person should lead the party and the government.

“I think there is a concern in the ANC, powerful quarters of the ANC, and I think they are right, that competing centres of power can actually become detrimental to good governance,” he said.

Others were less sure.

Ginwala recalled the history of party discussion in 2000 that torpedoed a proposal to amend the ANC constitution and ensure that its leader would automatically be its candidate for president. It was felt that the two jobs might, at times, require different qualities, she said.

While Friedman said a split was possible, but not likely, Matshiqi saw it as a real possibility.

“The challenge is not to avoid the separation of the two centres of power, the challenge is to live with the two centres of power, but start a debate about how you harmonise the two,” Matshiqi said.

Debate within the ANC and its capacity for policy analysis were persistent concerns among panelists, who saw the centralisation of power or the top-down leadership style as a key cause of the current crisis.

“The current leadership style of the ANC so far has really destroyed the grass-roots democratic structures,” said Madlala.

“With the change of 1994, quite a number of civic structures were destroyed. The people were told the ANC is now in charge. Do away with all these civic organisations, the residents’ associations. Quite a lot of good leaders went under.”

Matshiqi said the party had failed to implement a decision in 2000 to train its members and improve their political capacity.

“The ANC has been found wanting, the ANC as a party,” he said.

Friedman and Habib argued about the origin of the top-down style of government that most saw as a primary cause of what all agreed was a real political crisis.

Habib said the centralisation of power around the presidency was an inevitable consequence of the broadly neo-liberal economic trajectory chosen by the ANC since 1994. “The more you shift towards neo-liberal macroeconomics, the more you compromise your democracy. You can’t understand the conflict or even the support for Zuma in the [ANC’s] National General Council without understanding that unhappiness with the centralisation of power in the political system and the anti-Mbeki sentiment that flows out,” he said.

“The presidential succession for me is the modality through which another conflict is playing itself out ­ a conflict about the terms of transition, a conflict about the nature of macroeconomic policy *1.”

Friedman insisted that the style of government was a choice and that the still contentious 1997 Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy known as Gear was based on the ANC’s assessment of the balance of power during negotiations leading to the transition from white rule.

“The question of Gear ­ you know, that once you do Gear you have to manage from the top, you have to rely on technicians rather than people ­ I think it is simply not true. There was a political choice which was made at the time. There was nothing inevitable about it. We can have open, inclusive, democratic politics and an economic trajectory which looks more or less like the current one,” he said.

Ginwala analysed the ANC culture differently. She saw the political style as a consequence of compromise for the sake of reconciliation, but she conceded that open debate had declined.

“If you create the notion and public perception that you have an authoritarian system ... you end up with a dynamic of self-censorship. There is a self-censorship, a voluntary silencing of political voice, which is unjustified in the context,” she said.

At present, the government was directing the party and a key question facing the ANC in the years ahead would be how to make the government accountable to it.

How democracy develops within the ANC is likely to depend in a large part on the leadership team that is elected next year. While the panel rejected as simplistic the view that an individual could determine the success or failure of South Africa’s democracy project, they acknowledged that personality could be influential.

“Was the ANC of Tambo the same as the ANC of Mandela?” asked Matshiqi. “There is an extent to which an individual imposes his personality; there is also an extent to which a party may assume the personality of an individual.”

None of the panelists appeared to describe Zuma as they listed the attributes of an ideal leader. Nor was Mbeki recognisable in their definition.

Ginwala said the next ANC president should be a visionary of unimpeachable personal integrity with the ability to manage difference and diversity.

Friedman endorsed the need for someone who respects difference and diversity, saying : “Good leaders are people who are able to work with people who are very different. ... Bad leaders get threatened by that and try to drive away talents which they need.”

For Matshiqi, the missing ingredient was wisdom. “You need a wise man, not just a clever person ­ that’s not enough,” he said.

“We’ve just defined a saint,” concluded Habib.

A full transcript of the debate is available on www.sundaytimes.co.za.

With acknowledgements to Brendan Boyle and the Sunday Times.


*1  A conflict about the nature of macroeconomic policy - called bumiputera with hands caught in the cookie jar.

There seems to be little commonality in the analysis and interpretation of these "expert" panelists, or indeed any "experts" and observers.

The probable reason for this is that although there is indeed a reason for the current political turmoil, it has little to do with the twaddle of divergent personalities, ideologies, leadership styles, etc.

Far more likely it has to do with the short to medium term anxiety caused by threat of exposure, as well as the dynamics of conflicts of interest in the endless quests for allocation and exploitation of scarce resources.

A long term anxiety lurking is how to placate the masses while still securing their votes once all the resources are allocated and/or consumed. The answer is to look quietly north, young man. There's always the land.