The rules of politics are being rewritten. No longer can a distant ANC leadership be sure of imposing its will

‘The ideological commitments are all on a back burner. For now it’s about power, personalities and old scores’

From an executive more used to telling than explaining, it was revealing that Frank Chikane thought to call a press conference to report that President Thabo Mbeki’s “bout of influenza” would prevent him from answering questions in Parliament on Wednesday. Chikane, who heads Mbeki’s personal staff, was visibly irritated when a veteran journalist asked whether the President could be suffering an expedient illness that might also allow him to skip a potentially awkward ANC caucus meeting on Thursday.

“You know President Mbeki. He can handle anything,” Chikane retorted. But Mbeki did not attend the regular caucus meeting and, whether question time or the caucus was the issue, Chikane’s rare briefing was pre-emptive damage control by an executive suddenly less sure of its credibility.

The caucus meeting was the first since members sent pro-Mbeki Chief Whip Mbulelo Goniwe packing when he proposed a pledge in which MPs would have said in effect: we are him and he is us.

Chikane’s briefing was just the latest symbol of the change that is sweeping the South African political landscape as things appear to fall apart on every side and people might become tempted to ask whether, as Yeats speculated in another context, “the centre cannot hold”.

Political analysts consulted said they doubted that things were indeed falling apart, but they said the seismic effects of Jacob Zuma’s contested presidential bid were rewriting the rules of South African politics.

Debates usually held behind closed doors are being dragged into the open. Issues previously unspoken of ­ at least openly ­ are now the grist of public discussion.

“I wouldn’t say things are falling apart. I think it is becoming more difficult to keep a lid on things,” said Steven Friedman of the Institute for Democracy, known as Idasa.

Sakhela Buhlungu of the University of the Witwatersrand said the primary driver of change was the shift of allegiance from a once-powerful President now paralysed *1 by his 2009 retirement deadline.

“There was once a fear that enveloped everything around him, but people are seeing now that he has no more power over them,” he said.

Certainly, change is everywhere.

Trade union leadership battles, usually the stuff of now metaphorical smoke-filled rooms, are bursting into the open; long-denied problems like crime and Aids are being acknowledged and addressed; party hacks are finding the courage to defy the ANC leadership at several levels; and the President’s word is no longer law *2.

Parliamentary committees have recently rejected an intelligence report accepted and endorsed by the Cabinet, have told the Minerals and Energy Department to rethink its proposals on regional energy distribution and have repeatedly roasted the Home Affairs Ministry.

Some Cosatu affiliates are holding their congresses to elect new leadership ahead of the labour federation’s congress later this month. The affiliates favour proactive leaders who will work closely with Cosatu and play an important role in the ANC succession debate. Their preferred successor to Mbeki would be someone close to the workers. Someone like Zuma, they say.

The economic-policy dispute between Mbeki’s centrist wing and the leftist communist and labour branches of the ruling alliance is being played out in an exchange of sometimes vitriolic papers that are not passed from hand to hand as in the past, but posted on party websites.

The differences are not just about economic policy. The government’s heavy-handed implementation of unpopular decisions is also under fire.

The SA Communist Party in Gauteng has called for Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi’s head for his mishandling of the Khutsong uprising over the demarcation process that saw Merafong, then in Gauteng, being incorporated into North West.

Its call came after the Constitutional Court ruled that the government had acted unconstitutionally when it shifted Matatiele from the control of the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal.

After so many setbacks, the executive has become more careful about its message. Explaining has become as important as telling.

Though Mbeki has not backed down on his widely reviled stance on HIV/Aids, the Cabinet did decide last week to launch a damage-control programme after Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang made South Africa a laughing stock at the World Aids Conference in Toronto with her garlic and beetroot campaign. The Government Communication and Information System will become the main channel for the Aids message and the Cabinet itself will approve the content of that message.

After years of sometimes absurd contest about crime statistics, the Cabinet has also acknowledged that criminals have the upper hand and has signed up with business to design and launch a new anti-crime campaign as soon as possible.

Mbeki thought it necessary recently to warn in a closed meeting with the ANC’s National Executive Committee that the obsession at all levels with the succession battle in the party was undermining the government’s real job of serving the people.

It was a message that resonated with many affluent South Africans trying to use the national facilities ­ electricity, healthy water, refined fuel and gas and dry, stable roads ­ they have taken for granted for so long *3. It seemed plausible after a rash of reports citing poor management as the cause of so many government failures *4.

The National Energy Regulator said poor maintenance was a primary cause of the recent energy crisis in the Western Cape. Marumo Moerane’s task team on fuel security warned this week that inadequate management could lead to new petrol and diesel shortages. And in Cape Town the simple failure to clear storm-water drains before the first winter rains seized traffic for several hours in the autumn.

Black economic empowerment has lured many of the best managers from government into business. The ruling party’s parallel programme of empowerment by employment for those who miss out on enrichment has seen thousands of the party faithful thrust into government jobs where position is easily mistaken for productivity.

For as long as party loyalty is judged more important than job performance, the impending changes at the top mean picking a winner is a better guarantee of advancement than getting the appropriate training for a complex technical job.

In the political landscape of old, Mbeki would have been able to manage his succession and protect the future of the over-engineered government structure he has built.

“I think he is discovering how difficult it is to do that. He is trying to use exactly the same strategy to manage the succession that he has used to defend his mission ­ gender. It’s not going to fly,” Friedman said, in reference to Mbeki’s appointments of women as premiers and ministers and his suggestion that a woman should succeed him.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, a leading spokesman for the Zuma campaign, also acknowledges new space in the political debate.

“The political situation is fluid. This period is pregnant with many possibilities which, if managed correctly, could further tilt the balance in favour of the working class and left forces,” he said this week.

Buhlungu doubts that much of the debate really is about policy or ideology. “The ideological commitments are all on a back burner. For now it’s about power, personalities and old scores,” he said.

Friedman sees more of a mix in the turmoil that is shaking politics into a new mould. “There are some people with ideological issues, but it’s not mainly about ideology. It would be more accurate to say it is about leadership style and how the ANC is being led. The support for Zuma is about a more congenial leadership style,” he said.

The preferred leader might be congenial, but the contest is anything but. Land and human rights campaigner Andile Mngxitama sees Zuma’s battle as effectively won, but wonders whether the ANC’s deputy president and his entourage will be able to stand the heat they have allowed to build in the political kitchen.

“The question is whether those who will capture the Union Buildings will be able to stand the rigour of the kind of critique they have introduced into the debate,” he said. He expects the new style to stick, but says there is no way back to the old ways of Vatican-style bargaining with the masses invited only to cheer the white smoke.

Buhlungu concurs: “This period of change is to our long-term advantage. It’s going to be frightening, but it’s going to be good.”

Zuma’s bid to become president has triggered ugly and unconventional battles that have wounded many individuals. In time, as South Africans get more used to this new style, we may learn to fight for policies and not just for power.

But Zuma’s ambition has changed the rules of the game *5 and, on balance, it might be one thing we will need one day to thank him for.

With acknowledgements to Brendan Boyle, Moipone Malefane and Sunday Times.