Times are tough. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is not the only one who might lose his job. Apparently the entire communist contingent in the cabinet could also be out on the streets.
Whoever would have thought that President Jacob Zuma would one day contemplate putting Blade Nzimande out of work? But listening to the SACP nowadays, it’s not such a surprise that Zuma is no longer smitten with the communists. They have not only hounded his rich friends, the Guptas, out of the country, but the SACP also want the president’s friendship with the family investigated and the family’s wealth possibly confiscated as the proceeds of crime.
Solly Mapaila, one of the two SACP general-secretaries, has been relentless and almost the sole critic from within the liberation movement. For the SACP, the patron-client relationship between Zuma and the Guptas is not just a manifestation of “state capture”. Rather, it is indicative of “corporate capture”, which is supposedly a more comprehensive description of the phenomenon, and supposedly takes the analysis to a higher level.
The communists obviously reckon they have all this figured out. That’s impressive. One still has to ask: Why now?
The patron-clientilism of the Zuma presidency is not a recent creation. It’s as old as the administration itself. Zwelinzima Vavi, the former general-secretary of Cosatu, noticed it within two years of Zuma becoming president. Under Zuma, Vavi warned at Cosatu’s Congress in 2010, South Africa was turning into a predatory state. The political elite was feeding off state resources without any care for the welfare of the republic. This was a betrayal of what they’d hoped Zuma’s presidency would become: a great advance for the interests of the poor and working class people.
Vavi felt betrayed by Zuma who had seemed to be one thing, but turned out to be something else altogether. And, that was in just two years of his becoming president.
While Vavi made these observations, the communists were quiet. I doubt they didn’t see what Vavi was seeing or at least hear about it. As comrades and friends, they moved in the same circles and had offices in the same building.
The communists not only chose silence, but also sought to silence those who spoke out. One of those they attempted to stifle was David Masondo, the then chairman of the Young Communist League.
Writing in the City Press on September 5 2010, Masondo, warned: “BEE is increasingly becoming too narrow, amounting to ZEE – that is, Zuma Economic Empowerment … Only a few can be misled to believe there is no link between Zuma’s rise to the presidency and his family’s rise to riches.”
What Masondo had diagnosed was neo-patrimonialism. After that article, life in the SACP was never the same for Masondo. He was eventually driven out of the organisation. The SACP was not only determined to silence all criticism against Zuma, it also enthusiastically supported his re-election as ANC president in 2012.
By this time, Vavi had turned into an outright critic of the Zuma presidency. That made him highly unpopular with the SACP and among some of his colleagues in the labour movement.
As a result, Vavi increasingly found life unbearable within Cosatu. The organisation not only exploited his indiscretions, but also fabricated misdemeanours.
The goal was to hound Vavi out of Cosatu, clearing the federation of any contrarians so that it would became a thorough cheerleader for the Zuma presidency. The SACP approved of the purge and Nzimande went further to call for a law against “offending the president” in public discussions.
In other words, the SACP was complicit in creating the patron-clientilism that defines the Zuma-presidency. Yet today they’ve turned into vocal critics and provide what they purport to be the most trenchant analysis of this pathology.
So why were they silent for the last seven years? Where were their analytical powers when the rank and file was confounded by what their president had turned into?
The Party was silent because it was part of the hegemonic faction within the ANC. Its leaders enjoyed influence within government and the perks that came with office. Ideology was blunted by the comforts offered by power. They did not stop the rot.
Their criticism now stems from being marginalised. The Party was useful to Zuma only to the extent that it shored up his presidency. Zuma needed them, together with Cosatu, especially because the ANC was divided between Thabo Mbeki and himself in the lead up to Polokwane in 2007.
Out in the cold throughout the Mbeki years, the SACP and Cosatu became the most vocal of all Zuma’s supporters – in order to secure themselves a seat at the table. And they were rewarded.
Once in office, Zuma consolidated his power-base within the ANC. He bought loyalty with patronage.
But now Zuma has three provincial barons – Ace Magashule, DD Mabuza and Supra Mahumapelo – firmly behind him. They, in turn, have installed their own acolytes at the helm of the ANC Youth and Women’s League.
The newly elected chair of KwaZulu-Natal, Zihle Zikalala, is also working frantically to unite a divided province in support of a proxy to succeed Zuma.
With the support of four provinces and two leagues, Zuma doesn’t need the SACP.
Nzimande’s exclusion from the inner circle probably also had something to do with Zuma’s new acolytes. They have ambitions of their own. They may not have been too possibly about Nzimande’s closeness to Zuma. That may have threatened their ambitions, leading to some hostility towards Nzimande. Some even alleged Nzimande was once a member of Inkatha.
Now facing a possible return to the cold, the SACP is at its weakest. As part of the government since 2009, they too are guilty of “the sins of incumbency”. They lack moral authority.
Maybe their recent recovery of conscience will earn back some level of respectability, but then it may be dismissed as mere opportunism.
They cannot hope to enlist the once-formidable Cosatu in their sudden fight against the predatory elite. The labour federation is in tatters. The Party helped drive the metal workers – who form the largest trade union in the country – from the labour federation.
Cosatu has now gone silent, as if to suggest it too no longer exists.
What an irony: the very moment that supposedly represented the height of leftist influence actually induced its decline!
That said, one is pleased the SACP has regained its senses. Lapses are not unusual in a transformation process, riddled with brutal power struggles – inde lendlela.
They’ve hopefully learnt their lessons. One is that the comforts of power lull the revolutionary edge. The Party cannot force any concessions out of the nationalist ANC without an independent power base.
Think back to the early 2000s. An out-of-government SACP, leading a united Cosatu, halted government’s privatisation programme with sheer organised power.
Just staying out of government, however, is not enough. The Party must rebuild the labour movement. That means bringing the metalworkers back into Cosatu.
Nzimande owes Irvin Jim and Vavi a phone call. Without rebuilding the labour federation, the “trenchant analysis” that the Party has just offered is mere posturing.
Mcebisi Ndletyana is associate professor of politics at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation, UJ
Blade and cabinet communists may soon find that baby, it’s cold outside
Whoever would have thought that President Jacob Zuma would one day contemplate putting Blade Nzimande out of work? But listening to the SACP nowadays, it’s not such a surprise that Zuma is no longer smitten with the communists. They have not only hounded his rich friends, the Guptas, out of the country, but the SACP also want the president’s friendship with the family investigated and the family’s wealth possibly confiscated as the proceeds of crime.
Solly Mapaila, one of the two SACP general-secretaries, has been relentless and almost the sole critic from within the liberation movement. For the SACP, the patron-client relationship between Zuma and the Guptas is not just a manifestation of “state capture”. Rather, it is indicative of “corporate capture”, which is supposedly a more comprehensive description of the phenomenon, and supposedly takes the analysis to a higher level.
The communists obviously reckon they have all this figured out. That’s impressive. One still has to ask: Why now?
The patron-clientilism of the Zuma presidency is not a recent creation. It’s as old as the administration itself. Zwelinzima Vavi, the former general-secretary of Cosatu, noticed it within two years of Zuma becoming president. Under Zuma, Vavi warned at Cosatu’s Congress in 2010, South Africa was turning into a predatory state. The political elite was feeding off state resources without any care for the welfare of the republic. This was a betrayal of what they’d hoped Zuma’s presidency would become: a great advance for the interests of the poor and working class people.
Vavi felt betrayed by Zuma who had seemed to be one thing, but turned out to be something else altogether. And, that was in just two years of his becoming president.
While Vavi made these observations, the communists were quiet. I doubt they didn’t see what Vavi was seeing or at least hear about it. As comrades and friends, they moved in the same circles and had offices in the same building.
The communists not only chose silence, but also sought to silence those who spoke out. One of those they attempted to stifle was David Masondo, the then chairman of the Young Communist League.
Writing in the City Press on September 5 2010, Masondo, warned: “BEE is increasingly becoming too narrow, amounting to ZEE – that is, Zuma Economic Empowerment … Only a few can be misled to believe there is no link between Zuma’s rise to the presidency and his family’s rise to riches.”
What Masondo had diagnosed was neo-patrimonialism. After that article, life in the SACP was never the same for Masondo. He was eventually driven out of the organisation. The SACP was not only determined to silence all criticism against Zuma, it also enthusiastically supported his re-election as ANC president in 2012.
By this time, Vavi had turned into an outright critic of the Zuma presidency. That made him highly unpopular with the SACP and among some of his colleagues in the labour movement.
As a result, Vavi increasingly found life unbearable within Cosatu. The organisation not only exploited his indiscretions, but also fabricated misdemeanours.
The goal was to hound Vavi out of Cosatu, clearing the federation of any contrarians so that it would became a thorough cheerleader for the Zuma presidency. The SACP approved of the purge and Nzimande went further to call for a law against “offending the president” in public discussions.
In other words, the SACP was complicit in creating the patron-clientilism that defines the Zuma-presidency. Yet today they’ve turned into vocal critics and provide what they purport to be the most trenchant analysis of this pathology.
So why were they silent for the last seven years? Where were their analytical powers when the rank and file was confounded by what their president had turned into?
The Party was silent because it was part of the hegemonic faction within the ANC. Its leaders enjoyed influence within government and the perks that came with office. Ideology was blunted by the comforts offered by power. They did not stop the rot.
Their criticism now stems from being marginalised. The Party was useful to Zuma only to the extent that it shored up his presidency. Zuma needed them, together with Cosatu, especially because the ANC was divided between Thabo Mbeki and himself in the lead up to Polokwane in 2007.
Out in the cold throughout the Mbeki years, the SACP and Cosatu became the most vocal of all Zuma’s supporters – in order to secure themselves a seat at the table. And they were rewarded.
Once in office, Zuma consolidated his power-base within the ANC. He bought loyalty with patronage.
But now Zuma has three provincial barons – Ace Magashule, DD Mabuza and Supra Mahumapelo – firmly behind him. They, in turn, have installed their own acolytes at the helm of the ANC Youth and Women’s League.
The newly elected chair of KwaZulu-Natal, Zihle Zikalala, is also working frantically to unite a divided province in support of a proxy to succeed Zuma.
With the support of four provinces and two leagues, Zuma doesn’t need the SACP.
Nzimande’s exclusion from the inner circle probably also had something to do with Zuma’s new acolytes. They have ambitions of their own. They may not have been too possibly about Nzimande’s closeness to Zuma. That may have threatened their ambitions, leading to some hostility towards Nzimande. Some even alleged Nzimande was once a member of Inkatha.
Now facing a possible return to the cold, the SACP is at its weakest. As part of the government since 2009, they too are guilty of “the sins of incumbency”. They lack moral authority.
Maybe their recent recovery of conscience will earn back some level of respectability, but then it may be dismissed as mere opportunism.
They cannot hope to enlist the once-formidable Cosatu in their sudden fight against the predatory elite. The labour federation is in tatters. The Party helped drive the metal workers – who form the largest trade union in the country – from the labour federation.
Cosatu has now gone silent, as if to suggest it too no longer exists.
What an irony: the very moment that supposedly represented the height of leftist influence actually induced its decline!
That said, one is pleased the SACP has regained its senses. Lapses are not unusual in a transformation process, riddled with brutal power struggles – inde lendlela.
They’ve hopefully learnt their lessons. One is that the comforts of power lull the revolutionary edge. The Party cannot force any concessions out of the nationalist ANC without an independent power base.
Think back to the early 2000s. An out-of-government SACP, leading a united Cosatu, halted government’s privatisation programme with sheer organised power.
Just staying out of government, however, is not enough. The Party must rebuild the labour movement. That means bringing the metalworkers back into Cosatu.
Nzimande owes Irvin Jim and Vavi a phone call. Without rebuilding the labour federation, the “trenchant analysis” that the Party has just offered is mere posturing.
Mcebisi Ndletyana is associate professor of politics at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation, UJ
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