OPINION | ANC must rid itself of the Trojan Horse within

The past two weeks have been very interesting in the South African body politic. The ANC secretary-general, Ace Magashule, has been implicated in a plot to remove ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa.This plot is part of a political hangover from the Nasrec conference that saw Zuma and his merry band of political friends losing their grip on the levers of political power.

As a result, their grip on the country’s purse-strings was also loosened, something which was a source of panic and desperation for them.

The Zuma grouping has demonstrated they will fight tooth and nail to regain the lost ground. After all, a lot was invested in their political project to subjugate South Africa and its people to their self-enrichment crusade.

As South Africans we became their underlings and inconvenient subjects that proved ungrateful to the high and mighty Jacob Zuma.

We proved ungrateful to this brigade because we would not allow Zuma to destroy what we so painfully constructed over the past post-apartheid years.

Removing them from power is viewed as a cardinal sin. They are now vengeful in their desperate attempts to undo the outcomes of the Nasrec conference.

Theirs is an unmasked political warfare that will be fought dirty and without rules of engagement. They have nothing to lose anymore. The political stakes are high and likely to rise still more.

The question is what to do when faced with this kind of political enemy from within?

The first thing is for the ANC to recognise and boldly pronounce that a group of political incorrigibles led by Magashule and Zuma have defined themselves outside the ANC and its collective leadership which was elected at that conference.

This was demonstrated through contradictory statements made by Magashule against official positions of the ANC.

This behaviour has continued ever since, with the latest being the factional plotting meeting in Durban, and Zuma’s strange but not unexpected pronouncements on the State Capture phenomenon.

These are all connected political theatrics, well-orchestrat ed to demonstrate that there is in fact another ‘ANC’ in town. This ‘other ANC’ is bandied about as the true ‘ANC’ whose commitment to the radical economic transformation surpasses that of the ANC which emerged post-Nasrec. In effect, this ‘other ANC’ represents a splinter group that formed im mediately after the ANC Nasrec Conference, but decided to stay inside to suck the life out of the ANC and its leadership.

They pose a greater danger than splinter groups like COPE and EFF, as these are clearly identifiable and are outside of the ANC.

The second thing to do is for the ANC to grow political balls and officially identify Zuma as the main culprit in the state capture crime of treason. The available information, evidence and Zuma’s pronouncements point to this fact.

It is now common cause that Zuma allowed, facilitated, sustained and defended the subjugation of state machinery and its resources to the Guptas.

He did all this be cause, as he claims the “Guptas were the only ones prepared to help my children when they could not find jobs”.

But we know that he also orchestrated this treasonous scheme so that he and his family and friends could perpetually live a life of opulence in the face of generalised misery of our people.

Therefore, the ANC cannot prevaricate and behave civilly when it is under open attack from this splinter group from within. It has to use everything it has at its disposal in order to fend off this internal political onslaught.

This it must do because politics is about power, and power concedes nothing without struggle. The scorched earth political strategy adopted by this ‘other ANC’ of Jacob Zuma and Ace Magashule must be met with the concomitant political action from the true ANC that emerged post-Nasrec.

The ANC cannot approach a gunfight armed with a stick. To save the ANC from demise occasioned by this internal plague, its leadership and members must be prepared to use very strong political detergents to cleanse the ANC.

This must, of necessity, include expelling those whose value system and political interests are totally inimical to the very existence of the ANC. The rough and tumble of politics de mand this type of action sometimes and I believe that time has arrived for the ANC. People must see the real ANC stand up to the political bandits that turned the ANC against the masses over the past ten years.

It is this kind of tough political action against those who sacrificed the whole country at the altar of voracious greed that will improve the chances of the ANC in next year’s elections. We advise this because it will be virtually impossible to try maintain internal political order and stability in the ANC when there is an internal splinter group that overtly works to undermine everything we do to win the 2019 elections.

The sooner this splinter group is cut loose, the better for the ANC to focus its energies on the upcoming elections.

History has demonstrated that it is better to fight a known and identifiable opposition that is outside, than a covert opposition inside the organisation. Whatever credibility the splinter group might have whilst inside the ANC, will soon vanish once it is cut loose and ejected from the ANC.

The masses trust the organisation ANC, not its individual members and leaders whose commitment to the long-term goals of the ANC and masses may be tempered by exogenous personal interests.

Lastly, it cannot be overstated that unity for its own sake cannot work for the long-term interests of the ANC. More than any other time before, the ANC needs organisational unity of purpose over and above purposeless unity of self-interested opposites.

Mzukisi Makatse is a member of the ANC. He writes in his personal