OPINION: Masualle has key role – at national level

Peace times produce no heroes. It is only in times of war that heroes emerge. Real heroes emerge not just to fight and subdue opponents but use victory as an instrument to foster back peace and unity.

A new phenomenon of fierce internal campaigning has given rise to pseudo-formal lobby groups obnoxiously arranged along factional lines and used as sharp tools in leadership battles that threaten to tear our glorious movement apart.

A hero is needed to take it back to a state of peace and unity. Not a hero in the form of a victorious individual produced by a factional slate. Not a hero in human form but just one province to isolate itself from the quagmire of factional politics and chart the path towards unity.

In a perfect world the province that gave the ANC no less than four presidents – three of whom led the ANC consecutively for a total of 40 years! – would be the perfect choice for that heroic role. We can boast of Dr AB Xuma (1940-1949); OR Tambo (1967-1991); Nelson Mandela (1991-1997); and Thabo Mbeki (1997-2007).

For almost half of its 105-year history, 49-years to be exact, the ANC had leaders who called the Eastern Cape “home”.

Sadly, the heroism needed at this juncture amidst a sea of challenges cannot be provided by a province that epitomises the very malaise which afflicts the congress movement nationally.

At a time when we need men and women who can make history, our storeroom of credibility and courage is found grossly depleted if not completely barren.

Writing in his 1852 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx opines, “…men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please, they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living”.

If I were to arrogate to myself licence to adulterate the writings of such a great political philosopher I would add at the end, “…, but only when the living have a sense of appreciation of such obligations as handed down to them”.

By some stroke of fate, the opportunity for emerging as the anointed heroic province was handed to Eastern Cape on a silver platter when its chairman, the likable Phumulo Masualle, was nominated to chair the committee of provincial chairpersons tasked with steering the ANC towards its elective national conference.

History has directed the political gods of the ANC to look to the Eastern Cape for leadership and direction.

But is this “weighing heavily on the brains of the living” as suggested by Marx?

Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to reposition the province as a strong voice of reason in national politics we started doing what we have come to perfect in recent times – fighting amongst ourselves, thereby sowing disunity that obliterates any strength we ought to have as we head to the national conference.

The contestation for the position of provincial chairperson between the current incumbent, Masualle, and provincial secretary, Oscar Mabuyane, is nullifying any opportunity the province may have been able to glean from the selection of Masualle to chair the national conference steering committee.

It also puts paid to any chances of the province staking a strong claim for at least one position in the Top Six and a respectable number of additional national executive committee members.

The hallmark of great leadership is not derived only from how well or how long one has occupied a position of leadership. The greatest measure of leadership is how many capable leaders one has produced.

Like many others, I cringed when a then very young and inexperienced Mabuyane was elected for his first term as provincial secretary.

The biggest test for Masualle was always going to be whether or not he could groom the novice – a product of student and youth politics – into a credible leader on whose shoulders the future of the ANC in the province could be entrusted.

Many objective observers agree that Masualle can pat himself on the back for having silenced critics and helped to lead a collective that produced a very grounded leader in Mabuyane.

Masualle should ordinarily be having no qualms about endorsing Mabuyane as the one to take the baton of visionary leadership from him.

With his quiet, thoughtful demeanour, Masualle has led the province from a tumultuous period through two terms of commendable stability. In that period he became an MEC and a Premier.

Although areas such as education and health still prove to be challenges – as they are even nationally – no one can say he has failed to efficiently lead the provincial government.

Masualle has reached the pinnacle of both provincial politics and governance.

If the province is to reclaim its position at the epicentre of national politics we have to use his selection to chair the steering committee as a springboard to launch him firmly into the national political space and not make him contest his political protégé, possibly with the disastrous consequences the province will surely suffer as a result of a bruising campaign battle.

The narrative – that those who support the candidacy of Mabuyane are against Masualle – is flawed.

Whilst there may well be hard-core factionalists who see Masualle purely in the context of a “leader of the other faction that must be crushed”, the majority do not regard support for Mabuyane as necessarily opposition to Masualle.

It would be a sad day for upward political mobility if Masualle was to forgo the perfect opportunity to endorse his protégé, and instead contest against him and lose.

The likelihood of his being considered by the province as part of those who represent us in the NEC after losing the provincial conference are slim if not nil.

Just like many that have regrettably fallen into the ubiquitous political dustbin despite strong political credentials and leadership acumen, it is very likely that for many years we might lose one of the best products from the ANC political factory.

The same can be said of Mabuyane should he lose. Three decades of grooming through student politics in Cosas and Sasco and youth politics in the ANC Youth League, together with growth in the mother-body over the past two terms as provincial secretary, would be wiped out.

This at a time when two of the major opposition parties are led by young leaders and are therefore increasingly appealing to an electorate comprised significantly of young voters who place no value in the struggle credentials of the ANC.

Can the ANC generally, and the province in particular, afford to ignore the need to look to the youth for the future?

Can we afford to go through a divisive provincial conference and emerge weaker a few months before the national conference?

Can the ANC, at a time in its history when it is suffering an unprecedented credibility crisis and needs the few remaining leaders who carry impeccable personal credibility records, afford to lose either of these two?

In moments of political sobriety, when the scourge of factional political thought is at its lowest ebb and love for the movement at its highest, these are the questions we need to answer.

There is a clarion call from the graves of Xuma, Tambo and Mandela, supported by Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, and many other heroes of the province that have led this glorious movement in whatever capacity. It says, “Eastern Cape, do the right thing. Do not forsake either of these two great leaders at the altar of factional politics. Do not relinquish the opportunity to reclaim your space in national politics by not sending your top-most leader to the NEC. Do not misjudge the need to elect a leader whose youthfulness will resonate with the majority of young voters even as we are faced with the prospect of losing state power in 2019. Do the right thing.”

Those with ears shall hear. Those with love for the ANC shall listen and do the right thing.

Ace Ncobo is a branch secretary of the ANC but writes in his personal capacity