Daggers drawn ahead of Mangaung poll
By Mathapedi Ramonotsi
IN A CELEBRATORY MOOD: President of ANC, Jacob Zuma and his Deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe share a joke with Jeffrey Radebe, Deputy Chairperson of the African National Congress, and Minister of Justice at the Centenary party
BLOEMFONTEIN – Although the forthcoming ANC elective conference is expected to be bitterly contested President Jacob Zuma will retain power while the niggling Julius Malema issue will go away, analysts have said.
ANC members will again congregate in Bloemfontein in December to choose the party’s leaders who will run the affairs of 100-year-old party for the next five years.
While Malema’s emergency and the appearance of fault lines in the faction that had coalesced to oust former President Thabo Mbeki from power at Polokwane had deepened democracy, his rhetoric and push for the top were unlikely to end Zuma’s incumbency.
Professor Ibrahim Sakir, Head of Governance at the Electoral Institution for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISDA) expects daggers to be drawn ahead of the conference but poured cold water on the Malema camp’s ability to block Zuma’s bid for a second term.
“The issue of Malema’s camp and power is overstated. He has support yes, but his quest for power will only fuel contestation. He is not that powerful to unseat JZ (Zuma),” said Sakir.
He said it was not clear whether Malema would be around for much longer as his fate will only be determined by the judgment of his appeal hearing following an ANC disciplinary board that found him guilty of putting the party into disrepute. He was suspended from the party for five years.
“National Executive Committee posts will be highly contested than at the Polokwane elective conference in 2007. We just hope the infighting in the ANC will not spill over and [engulf the whole] nation because the ANC is the government and the government rules the people,” he said.
He, however, commended the party for successfully hosting centenary celebrations last weekend and scoffed at suggestions that people had left the stadium during of Zuma’s speech in a show of displeasure of his leadership.
He attributed the walkout to indiscipline and the searing heat which sent people scurrying for shade. In his January 8 speech Zuma said the ANC in 2012 would take urgent and practical steps to restore core values and political discipline in the party.
“We will take urgent and practical steps to restore the core values stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline,” he said to applause. Firebrand Malema’s entrance into the stadium on Sunday, January 8 was greeted by a huge roar from the crowd.
Clad in his now trademark beret and gold trimmed sunglasses; the swashbuckling Malema was emboldened by the show of support after his wings were clipped by the disciplinary committee ruling.
The defiant Malema, like other ANC leaders, had traversed the length and breadth of the Free State addressing rallies to drum up support for the celebrations.
“Our enemies thought we were never going to make it to Mangaung but here we are. Let us go on Sunday [last] and listen to the speech of our president. Zuma is still our president. We elected him and, therefore, we must support him even if we do not like him,” said Malema in Welkom.
Malema who was in the company of former youth league leader and now NEC member Fikile Mbalula attracted a bigger crowd than Zuma in Botshabelo.
In a veiled show of support for Malema, Mbalula said the youth league was a “necessary pain for the ruling party”.
But a political analysts at the National University of Lesotho Nthakeng Selinyane described Malema as, “just a fly on the window of the big house of the ANC. The Malema factor will be flashed under the bridge after the elective conference. Parties like ANC are strong and will not be threatened by small factors. You do not wash your dirty linen on the streets.”
He said the youth league was not raising issues that exposed Zuma’s shortcomings but seemed to focus only on peripheral matters.
It was evident; he said that the ANC had been hit by factionalism before but survived. In 1998, Bantu Holomisa formed the United Democratic Movement (UDM) after defecting from the ANC.
After the Polokwane conference in 2007 party stalwarts Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbazima Shilowa left the ANC to form the Congress of the people (COPE).
Selinyane said: “The factions have always been there hence the two splinter parties that were formed after 1994 elections. Factions are always an offshoot of conspiracies in political movements.”
He said the party had undergone numerous transformations since the adoption of its founding document – the Freedom Charter.
“It (transformation) became more evident when the government led by ANC handled the issue of Zimbabwe. One was expecting more to be done by the country because it is led by a liberation movement. Zimbabwe is run like a private farm that benefits certain comrades, but nothing happened,” said Selinyane.
Professor Andre Keet of the department of Political Science at the University of the Free State (UFS) said the Malema factor hinged on his appeal hearing.
“It is not easy to calculate Malema’s power because his fate lies with the ruling that will be made after the appeal body sits and decides. We will be in a position to comment only after the outcome of the hearing, and then projections can be made,” said Keet.
Keet concurred that the elections will be highly contested. “When there are factions more members take part in the elective processes because they want their camp to win. It is good for democracy.”
He added that the fact that the youth league was able to raise issues that were previously swept under the carpet was important for debate and change.
But what seems apparent, however, is that the ructions in the party are set to festoon and gather pace until the leadership question has been settled.
In a show of insolence, the youth league’s message of support was not included in the ANC booklet for the centenary because of a communication breakdown.
“We didn’t know we were supposed to submit before January 3. Sometimes there is a communication breakdown, but there are many ways to communicate and that’s why we have put the message on the ANCYL website,” Malema told SAFM.
But this incident and the fact that Malema was not given a chance to address the main celebrations on Sunday, January 8 emphasised the widening chasm in the party ahead of the watershed elective conference.
