The ANC national general council has come and gone. What remains is for us and members of the ANC to do an honest assessment of what was achieved and what the council was really about.
With regard to the latter, the council was largely about the unstated, and the unstated pertains to the fact that President Jacob Zuma may not seek re-election as ANC leader at its 2017 national conference.
This means the council was partly about assessing the performance of the president as leader of the party and country. The process of assessing Zuma’s legacy is already under way.
Over and above that, the council was about evaluating the relationship between state capacity and the state of the party, as well as the relationship between the decisions of the ANC and its ability to implement its undertakings.
As far as the capacity of the party and that of the state are concerned, there is also the matter of the relationship between the Treasury and ANC policy decisions.
In this regard, the ANC had to assess, but didn’t, whether there is any truth to the allegation by some within its ranks that the Treasury has at times acted like “a state within the state”.
According to this allegation, the Treasury acts as the final arbiter when it comes to implementing, or blocking, those policy decisions of the ANC deemed imprudent by powerful interests in the domestic and global economy.
When ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe therefore alerted the council to the problem of what he called “corporate capture”, it was not clear whether it was obvious to all delegates that he was raising a much larger question: the possibility of the ANC’s programme, and the ANC itself, being derailed by forces that are hostile to its strategic goals.
Corporate capture is the tip of the iceberg. If the ANC fails to deal with factionalism, corruption and patronage networks, it will become susceptible, if it is not already, to capture by powerful economic and business interests, private and state intelligence interests, domestically and internationally, as well as criminal interests on the national and transnational front.
What I am positing is the possibility of distortions in public policy brought about by forces bent on undermining our national sovereignty and the independence of the post-apartheid state.
What is more, an ANC that has become a permanent home for things venal, immoral and unethical will be captured also, if this has not happened already, by those who were in the security establishment of the apartheid state.
The greatest danger, however, is the possibility that the current patterns of national division of labour will continue. White people will continue running the economy and black politicians and ANC leaders will run politics in their interests.
While these threats are not inevitable, a much greater threat is the possibility of wider divergences between the ANC and the interests of the majority of voters.
If the analysis of the president of the failures and weaknesses of the ANC is anything to go by, these threats are not only inevitable but have also become unavoidable.
But quite refreshing and impressive were the candour and honesty of the president about internal weaknesses pointing to a gap that has developed – especially during the decade spanning the 2005 and 2015 councils – between the ideals of the party and what it has actually become.
What was not impressive was the failure by the president to link organisational weaknesses to failures in leadership at an individual and collective level, and failures in leadership across the ANC.
There was also something stale about the president’s political report. As former MP and struggle stalwart Ben Turok noted, a lot of what Zuma and Mantashe said had been said many times before by them and their predecessors.
The problem is that the ANC is not very good at implementing its decisions and policies, a weakness made worsen by the internal decline of the past decade.
The failure by the council to characterise the ANC as a party in a state of decline in areas such as internal leadership may erode the credibility of ANC decisions and the moral authority of its leaders to the detriment of the party and country.
For instance, the discussion document that was criticised and attacked the most ahead of the council by South African and international commentators was the one on international relations.
The main criticism is that the ANC’s approach to international relations and, by extension, South Africa’s foreign policy, seems stuck in a Cold War time warp.
What needs to be criticised is the preponderance of commentary on the one hand and the ANC itself on the other.
When it comes to measures aimed at dealing with foreign interests in our private security industry and the decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court, we must emphasise the following:
l South Africa is not a province of any country in the world. In this regard, however, there seems to be an expectation that our foreign policy should be an extension of the foreign policies of western countries. Some among us are comfortable with our country being a province of the US and some European countries, but will make noises about China’s so-called colonial agenda at the slightest provocation.
l South Africa must chart an independent course and does not need the permission of any permanent member of the United Nations Security Council when it comes to its foreign policy. Even when we are wrong, we must be wrong independently.
l Pulling out of the ICC in support of murderous regimes does very little for our moral authority when we do very little to challenge what may become the recolonisation of Africa by foreign interests in the West and other parts of the world through an ideology of economic growth based on leveraging the weaknesses in moral authority on the part of the African Union and its members. That notwithstanding, I am not one who will be crying if, not when, South Africa pulls out of the ICC.
Turning to the decision by the council to have parliament look at the feasibility of setting up a media tribunal, the reasons behind this idea are dodgy. The most compelling argument by the council was that our media is too negative towards and about the ANC, its leaders and its government.
The less said about the idea the better. It is critical for us as citizens never to give a blank cheque to those who claim to be acting in the national interest and those who want us to take it for granted that they are always motivated by the public interest.
The truth is the ANC and the media are centres of power and both have the potential to use it to our disadvantage. Neither the ANC nor news is valueless.
Aubrey Matshiqi is an independent political analyst
ANC failure to deal with graft opens it to capture
With regard to the latter, the council was largely about the unstated, and the unstated pertains to the fact that President Jacob Zuma may not seek re-election as ANC leader at its 2017 national conference.
This means the council was partly about assessing the performance of the president as leader of the party and country. The process of assessing Zuma’s legacy is already under way.
Over and above that, the council was about evaluating the relationship between state capacity and the state of the party, as well as the relationship between the decisions of the ANC and its ability to implement its undertakings.
As far as the capacity of the party and that of the state are concerned, there is also the matter of the relationship between the Treasury and ANC policy decisions.
In this regard, the ANC had to assess, but didn’t, whether there is any truth to the allegation by some within its ranks that the Treasury has at times acted like “a state within the state”.
According to this allegation, the Treasury acts as the final arbiter when it comes to implementing, or blocking, those policy decisions of the ANC deemed imprudent by powerful interests in the domestic and global economy.
When ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe therefore alerted the council to the problem of what he called “corporate capture”, it was not clear whether it was obvious to all delegates that he was raising a much larger question: the possibility of the ANC’s programme, and the ANC itself, being derailed by forces that are hostile to its strategic goals.
Corporate capture is the tip of the iceberg. If the ANC fails to deal with factionalism, corruption and patronage networks, it will become susceptible, if it is not already, to capture by powerful economic and business interests, private and state intelligence interests, domestically and internationally, as well as criminal interests on the national and transnational front.
What I am positing is the possibility of distortions in public policy brought about by forces bent on undermining our national sovereignty and the independence of the post-apartheid state.
What is more, an ANC that has become a permanent home for things venal, immoral and unethical will be captured also, if this has not happened already, by those who were in the security establishment of the apartheid state.
The greatest danger, however, is the possibility that the current patterns of national division of labour will continue. White people will continue running the economy and black politicians and ANC leaders will run politics in their interests.
While these threats are not inevitable, a much greater threat is the possibility of wider divergences between the ANC and the interests of the majority of voters.
If the analysis of the president of the failures and weaknesses of the ANC is anything to go by, these threats are not only inevitable but have also become unavoidable.
But quite refreshing and impressive were the candour and honesty of the president about internal weaknesses pointing to a gap that has developed – especially during the decade spanning the 2005 and 2015 councils – between the ideals of the party and what it has actually become.
What was not impressive was the failure by the president to link organisational weaknesses to failures in leadership at an individual and collective level, and failures in leadership across the ANC.
There was also something stale about the president’s political report. As former MP and struggle stalwart Ben Turok noted, a lot of what Zuma and Mantashe said had been said many times before by them and their predecessors.
The problem is that the ANC is not very good at implementing its decisions and policies, a weakness made worsen by the internal decline of the past decade.
The failure by the council to characterise the ANC as a party in a state of decline in areas such as internal leadership may erode the credibility of ANC decisions and the moral authority of its leaders to the detriment of the party and country.
For instance, the discussion document that was criticised and attacked the most ahead of the council by South African and international commentators was the one on international relations.
The main criticism is that the ANC’s approach to international relations and, by extension, South Africa’s foreign policy, seems stuck in a Cold War time warp.
What needs to be criticised is the preponderance of commentary on the one hand and the ANC itself on the other.
When it comes to measures aimed at dealing with foreign interests in our private security industry and the decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court, we must emphasise the following:
l South Africa is not a province of any country in the world. In this regard, however, there seems to be an expectation that our foreign policy should be an extension of the foreign policies of western countries. Some among us are comfortable with our country being a province of the US and some European countries, but will make noises about China’s so-called colonial agenda at the slightest provocation.
l South Africa must chart an independent course and does not need the permission of any permanent member of the United Nations Security Council when it comes to its foreign policy. Even when we are wrong, we must be wrong independently.
l Pulling out of the ICC in support of murderous regimes does very little for our moral authority when we do very little to challenge what may become the recolonisation of Africa by foreign interests in the West and other parts of the world through an ideology of economic growth based on leveraging the weaknesses in moral authority on the part of the African Union and its members. That notwithstanding, I am not one who will be crying if, not when, South Africa pulls out of the ICC.
Turning to the decision by the council to have parliament look at the feasibility of setting up a media tribunal, the reasons behind this idea are dodgy. The most compelling argument by the council was that our media is too negative towards and about the ANC, its leaders and its government.
The less said about the idea the better. It is critical for us as citizens never to give a blank cheque to those who claim to be acting in the national interest and those who want us to take it for granted that they are always motivated by the public interest.
The truth is the ANC and the media are centres of power and both have the potential to use it to our disadvantage. Neither the ANC nor news is valueless.
Aubrey Matshiqi is an independent political analyst
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