It is now apparent to all that the ANC is declining in membership and in popularity nationwide, except in KwaZulu-Natal.
The continued rise of ANC membership in KZN can be attributed to the province being the birthplace of the current president. If the president no longer comes from that province, the support base for the ANC there may decline.
The bottomline is that the ANC is being killed by its current leaders in a gradual, but certain manner.
Killing black owned small business
Year in, year out, small businesses owned by black South Africans contracted to government and state entities are being starved and not paid on time. Without a cash flow they go bankrupt, thereby feeding the stereotype that black Africans cannot run businesses successfully.
This happens, not because of white monopoly capital as some armchair revolutionaries would want us to believe, but because of the ANC deployees or supposed cadres in state and government entities do not pay our small businesses on time – year in, year out.
Why is this? African owned small businesses are given contracts and they do their jobs, but when they are supposed to receive payment they are expected to bribe state officials to get their money. If not those small black businesses do not get paid on time.
Then they have to get loans at high interest and thus begins a vicious cycle. If they are lucky they eventually get paid but only after landing in serious debt.
This is what perpetuates the stereotype of black South Africans being unable to run or manage businesses successfully.
This travesty is a result of the ANC deployment committee, which is a subset of the party list committee. It is manned by people with a very low sense of responsibility and a high level of greed. Its deployees sit in state positions where they hold black small businesses hostage. This is the juggernaut of corruption. This is what sustains the huge train of patronage that is leading us all towards destruction.
It is said that when an aeroplane is heading into a mountain, it does not matter whether you speak up or keep silent – when it hits the mountain you will all die.
The recent sacking of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and his replacement with David van Rooyen has just demonstrated that for citizens of this country, whether vocal or silent, our money was wiped out.
But at least the masses still have power, as was shown by the widespread public resistance to Nene’s sacking.
Absence of the ANC branch
What is important to note about this particular political crisis is that the ANC branches were entirely powerless. They were conspicuous by their absence in the debate around Nene’s sacking. Instead, there was a stern silence.
But even had the branches taken action, it would have taken months for Nene’s sacking to be properly discussed through the structures, moving from branch level to the region, from the region to the province and then to the national office.
The fact is that under the current electoral law, the branch is powerless and helpless.
The irrelevance of the branches was also underscored in the recent FeesMustFall campaign that started on university campuses. Students rose up to directly challenge the ministry of higher education, the government and the ANC at Luthuli House. They did not trust their problems with the ANC branches at their institutions. Anyway these are normally bogged down by internal factional slate battles.
What these protests clearly showed was that the ANC branches at these institutions of higher learning are all but dead or non-functional.
For ANC branches to be relevant they must address concrete problems facing society, otherwise people will ignore them, as has just happened.
Electoral reform the way
The solution to our current problems lies in reforming the electoral laws. Changing leadership within the ANC without changing the electoral laws will not solve the current political problems.
Simply changing leadership will mean changing the current slate and replacing it with another slate – the corruption problems will continue with minor variations or deviations. Without politicians being individually accountable corruption will continue unabated.
Electing a different political party is not the solution either. We will replace the ANC slate with a DA slate or an EFF slate. The cycle of corruption that happens without individual accountability is likely to continue.
Although party nametags may change, the people of South Africa will still be at the mercy of politicians who operate within an easily corruptible system.
Saving SA and the ANC
The only way to save the country, and the ANC, is through electoral reform that introduces a constituency-based electoral system. This will empower the people of South Africa to clean up politics in their respective local areas. They, as voters, will have the power to decide which candidates go to parliament and provincial assemblies from each constituency.
And they will have the power to withdraw corrupt or inept MPs and replace them with trustworthy accountable candidates.
This way we will restore the notion of “Power to the People” as enshrined in the Freedom Charter, in place of the current system of “power to the list” or the deployment committee.
Under the present electoral system, politicians behave like demigods. They forget they are supposed to be servants of the people, not the other way round.
It is only the masses of South Africa who can stop corruption and the rapid decline of our country to junk bond status. We can do this by developing a mass political movement that calls for the existing proportional representation system to be replaced with a constituency-based electoral system.
In this way, we can replace the top-down power of the list committees with the democratic power of ANC branches
Omry Makgoale is a rank and file ANC member. A pupil at Morris Isaacson High School he took part in the June 16, 1976, Soweto march. In exile he was elected chair of the regional political committee of the ANC in Tanzania in 1989. He writes in his personal capacity
Killing the ANC slowly but with certainty
The continued rise of ANC membership in KZN can be attributed to the province being the birthplace of the current president. If the president no longer comes from that province, the support base for the ANC there may decline.
The bottomline is that the ANC is being killed by its current leaders in a gradual, but certain manner.
Killing black owned small business
Year in, year out, small businesses owned by black South Africans contracted to government and state entities are being starved and not paid on time. Without a cash flow they go bankrupt, thereby feeding the stereotype that black Africans cannot run businesses successfully.
This happens, not because of white monopoly capital as some armchair revolutionaries would want us to believe, but because of the ANC deployees or supposed cadres in state and government entities do not pay our small businesses on time – year in, year out.
Why is this? African owned small businesses are given contracts and they do their jobs, but when they are supposed to receive payment they are expected to bribe state officials to get their money. If not those small black businesses do not get paid on time.
Then they have to get loans at high interest and thus begins a vicious cycle. If they are lucky they eventually get paid but only after landing in serious debt.
This is what perpetuates the stereotype of black South Africans being unable to run or manage businesses successfully.
This travesty is a result of the ANC deployment committee, which is a subset of the party list committee. It is manned by people with a very low sense of responsibility and a high level of greed. Its deployees sit in state positions where they hold black small businesses hostage. This is the juggernaut of corruption. This is what sustains the huge train of patronage that is leading us all towards destruction.
It is said that when an aeroplane is heading into a mountain, it does not matter whether you speak up or keep silent – when it hits the mountain you will all die.
The recent sacking of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and his replacement with David van Rooyen has just demonstrated that for citizens of this country, whether vocal or silent, our money was wiped out.
But at least the masses still have power, as was shown by the widespread public resistance to Nene’s sacking.
Absence of the ANC branch
What is important to note about this particular political crisis is that the ANC branches were entirely powerless. They were conspicuous by their absence in the debate around Nene’s sacking. Instead, there was a stern silence.
But even had the branches taken action, it would have taken months for Nene’s sacking to be properly discussed through the structures, moving from branch level to the region, from the region to the province and then to the national office.
The fact is that under the current electoral law, the branch is powerless and helpless.
The irrelevance of the branches was also underscored in the recent FeesMustFall campaign that started on university campuses. Students rose up to directly challenge the ministry of higher education, the government and the ANC at Luthuli House. They did not trust their problems with the ANC branches at their institutions. Anyway these are normally bogged down by internal factional slate battles.
What these protests clearly showed was that the ANC branches at these institutions of higher learning are all but dead or non-functional.
For ANC branches to be relevant they must address concrete problems facing society, otherwise people will ignore them, as has just happened.
Electoral reform the way
The solution to our current problems lies in reforming the electoral laws. Changing leadership within the ANC without changing the electoral laws will not solve the current political problems.
Simply changing leadership will mean changing the current slate and replacing it with another slate – the corruption problems will continue with minor variations or deviations. Without politicians being individually accountable corruption will continue unabated.
Electing a different political party is not the solution either. We will replace the ANC slate with a DA slate or an EFF slate. The cycle of corruption that happens without individual accountability is likely to continue.
Although party nametags may change, the people of South Africa will still be at the mercy of politicians who operate within an easily corruptible system.
Saving SA and the ANC
The only way to save the country, and the ANC, is through electoral reform that introduces a constituency-based electoral system. This will empower the people of South Africa to clean up politics in their respective local areas. They, as voters, will have the power to decide which candidates go to parliament and provincial assemblies from each constituency.
And they will have the power to withdraw corrupt or inept MPs and replace them with trustworthy accountable candidates.
This way we will restore the notion of “Power to the People” as enshrined in the Freedom Charter, in place of the current system of “power to the list” or the deployment committee.
Under the present electoral system, politicians behave like demigods. They forget they are supposed to be servants of the people, not the other way round.
It is only the masses of South Africa who can stop corruption and the rapid decline of our country to junk bond status. We can do this by developing a mass political movement that calls for the existing proportional representation system to be replaced with a constituency-based electoral system.
In this way, we can replace the top-down power of the list committees with the democratic power of ANC branches
Omry Makgoale is a rank and file ANC member. A pupil at Morris Isaacson High School he took part in the June 16, 1976, Soweto march. In exile he was elected chair of the regional political committee of the ANC in Tanzania in 1989. He writes in his personal capacity
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