Masses+appeal,+Editorial,+Sowetan

Sowetan, Johannesburg, Editorial, Wednesday June 07, 2006 06:38 - (SA)


=Masses appeal=

David Makhura, Gauteng provincial secretary of the ANC, said on Monday that members of the tripartite alliance should stop obsessing about the succession debate and concentrate on building the party’s mass base.

Makhura was indirectly acknowledging that the ANC is no longer the kind of mass-based party it used to be.

This matter was also raised by secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe in his report presented at the ANC’s national general council last year.

Motlanthe pointed out that the ANC’s grassroots structures were stagnant and needed to be rebuilt.

Last week Cosatu and the SACP claimed that the ANC had lost touch with the masses under Thabo Mbeki, the party’s president.

Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu’s general secretary, and general secretary of the SACP Blade Nzimande accused Mbeki of “the Zanufication” of the ANC.

This accusation has previously been made by Jeremy Cronin, another member of the SACP politburo. Cronin did not blame Mbeki personally but raised the concern that the party was becoming elitist.

In the context of the raging succession debate within the ANC and the broader tripartite alliance, Nzimande and Vavi have laid the blame on Mbeki personally.

Both accuse him of centralising power in the ANC presidency, thereby emasculating all the other structures within the party, including the office of the secretary-general, which is supposed to be the party’s administrative hub. Through this centralisation Mbeki has supposedly even emasculated parliament, the only mass-based voice within government.

This is the basis for the accusation that the country is heading for a dictatorship.

What the SACP and Cosatu are saying is that the ANC does not need a leader like Mbeki if it is to pursue its mandate of being a party that represents the aspirations of the masses.

The SACP has argued that under Mbeki’s leadership the ANC has allowed the development of a group driven by self-aggrandisement and greed.

This tendency has undermined noble initiatives such as black economic empowerment by allowing business to use individuals who have access to the government for their own selfish ends.

As far as the SACP and Cosatu are concerned, the ANC needs a leader who will be in touch with the masses and will not allow the interests of business to sway the party into policies that undermine the broader agenda to improve the lives of the South Africa’s masses.

The two allies’ support for Jacob Zuma must be seen in this context.

But both organisations have used populist tactics to position Zuma as a leader who can deliver the ANC from the clutches of elitism.

They are not prepared to discuss whether Zuma is indeed the leader that the party needs to achieve its historical mission to turn South Africa into a country that holds the interests of the masses supreme.

It has, for example, been pointed out that even if he comes into power Zuma would not necessarily deviate from the macroeconomic policy adopted by Mbeki’s government that has been criticised as neo-liberal.

The flippant explanation given by Zuma’ s supporters has been that at least he will have an ear for the ordinary people, especially the working class, whose interests the two organisations are believed to represent.

In reality the issues raised by the SACP and Cosatu are an expression of how forces within the tripartite alliance feel about the direction South Africa has taken as a developing country in dealing with issues of poverty, unemployment and the general quality of life for its majority.

Cosatu and the SACP are concerned that the growth in the country has not translated into more jobs. They blame this on the government’s growth employment and redistribution (Gear) macroeconomic policy.

It is obvious that the SACP and Cosatu still believe the ANC should be an agent for the kind of change that will effectively deal with issues of unemployment and poverty.

What is needed, they say, is to “save the [ANC] from the vagaries of careerism, greed, selfishness and economic conservatism”.

The debate, therefore, is about the heart and soul of the ANC in the context of the national democratic revolution, whereby access to political power should be to the benefit of the majority.

The SACP and Cosatu do not believe that the balance of forces within the party favours such an agenda.

Whether the SACP and Cosatu are correct in their analysis is a moot point. They have the democratic right to raise their concerns, and those within the ANC and the alliance who disagree with their prognosis should engage them.

It is an unfortunate reality that the succession debate has been marred by political posturing and personal attacks on certain individuals, which has created an ominous rift within the ANC.

So the initiative by the ANC national executive committee to move the debate away from individuals and towards a broader discussion about the party’s character must be commended.

It is through such open discussions that the party can reconnect with its mass base.

It is also through such broad discussions that the ANC will enhance its democratic nature and out of which will emerge a leader who will take the party into a future based on the interests of the majority of South Africans.


 * From: http://www.sowetan.co.za/szones/sowetanNEW/column/column1149655094.asp**

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