The+people+have+taken+back+the+party,+Jeremy+Gordin,+Sindy



=The people have taken back the party=


 * Jeremy Gordin, Sunday Independent, 23 December 2007**

//Zuma's 'machine of war' shows Mbeki and his handlangers have been out of touch with the masses for some time//

So all the king's horses and all the king's men could not make Thabo Mbeki the president of the ANC again.

Not even the SABC, a number of highly influential newspapers, the bogeyman of "international disinvestment", or a supposedly imminent corruption trial for Jacob Zuma could bring Mbeki back into the chief's seat and keep Zuma out.

On Friday, nine days ago, and two days before the election in Polokwane, Mbeki told a journalist that "it would never happen" that ANC members would elect Zuma as president. And on Tuesday evening, an hour before the results of the election for the ANC's top six officials were announced, Trevor Manuel, the minister of finance, said that it looked as if the race was "neck and neck" and that Mbeki would scrape in as president.

In fact Mbeki - and all the former top six national executive committee (NEC) members - except Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe - were brutally sacked by the ANC delegates.

Mbeki, the president, was replaced by Zuma; Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, the former chairman, was replaced by Baleka Mbete, the speaker of the house and a long-time Zuma follower; Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, the former deputy secretary-general, was replaced by Thandi Modise, a well-known ANC "woman soldier"; and Mendi Msimang, the former treasurer-general and husband of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the minister of health, was replaced by Mathews Phosa, now a businessman.

Motlanthe, the former secretary-general, was elected deputy president - which means, of course, that if Zuma becomes incapacitated for any reason before 2009 Motlanthe will be the most serious contender for the job of president of South Africa.

Motlanthe was replaced by well-known trade unionist Gwede Mantashe as secretary-general. Manuel, incidentally, who came in first in the NEC elections at the last ANC conference, was placed 57th on the general NEC list on Thursday night.

The same sentiments - that it looked as though Mbeki would win - were expressed just before the results came out by Ronnie Kasrils, the minister for intelligence, and Karl Niehaus, a member of the NEC and former ambassador.

Kasrils did not make it on to the NEC on Thursday night and neither did Niehaus.

"Jeez, so what happened?" - as the drunk man mugged on his way home from the pub asked the next morning from his hospital bed.

In a way, nothing odd happened.

Before the results for the top six were announced, a colleague of mine, who was not in Polokwane, sent me by SMS of his best guesstimate for the final tally.

All he did was send the amounts extrapolated from the provincial nominations - and though he was out by a couple of hundred votes, he was pretty much on the money.

The members of the ANC provincial regions gave their delegates a mandate - bring in Zuma and his ilk and dump Mbeki and his kind - and the delegates fulfilled the mandate, as they were obliged to do. It's called democracy.

All the stories claiming that delegates would be convinced to change their minds when they reached Polokwane and about a Mbeki fight-back was spin and wishful thinking.

And, ironically, although the literal meaning of Umshini wami, the struggle song adopted by Zuma and his supporters, is "Bring me my machine [of war]", not actually "Bring me my machine GUN", the youth league made certain that there would be no machines involved in the counting of votes.

The league rammed through a motion on the first day of conference ensuring that computers would not be used, but that all votes had to be counted manually. The league was not going to allow for the possibility that someone might inadvertently press a button twice, or six times, in Mbeki's favour.

But what really happened? Why did Zuma and his list do so surprisingly well, despite the spin to the contrary? Obviously, the Mbeki machine was completely and frighteningly out of touch with ANC delegates and, presumably, "the people". There was clearly - and obviously has been for a long time - a serious "disconnect" between ordinary ANC members and the party's ruling coterie.

"There are many kinds of denialism, you know. Aids denialism is only just one sort," said Jeremy Cronin, deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), who did well in the NEC election.

But, besides denialism, four other issues emerged at the ANC's 52nd conference, held on the Turfloop campus of the University of Limpopo, 30km from Polokwane.

The first is that, while analysts and the media have made much for months and years about the "imminent split-up of the tripartite alliance", the leaders of Cosatu, notably Zwelinzima Vavi, the trade union federation's general secretary, and of the SACP, notably Blade Nzimande, the party's general secretary, have not been fussing about divorce, but have been focusing on making the marriage work - their way, and via the ballot box.

It became clear at the conference that Cosatu and the SACP had played a major role (and that's a euphemism) in influencing ANC members, many of whom are members of Cosatu, during the provincial nominations process and in the prior months.

Second, there are many people - though clearly not among the ANC membership - who tend to write off the Youth League as a noisy irritant and its leader Fikile Mbalula as a demagogue.

Such people need to think again. It was clear at Polokwane that the youth league is far more influential than has been previously realised. The league is in fact clearly very influential - and it fought hard, long and noisily on behalf of Zuma.

Third, what became rapidly evident - within an hour of the conference starting - is that a huge abyss has been opening up over the last years between ordinary ANC members and Mbeki over the president's high-handed behaviour: firing Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the deputy-minister of health (now on the NEC), firing Billy Masetlha, the former chief spook (now also on the NEC), protecting Tshabalala-Msimang and Jackie Selebi, the national police commissioner, and suspending Vusi Pikoli, the national director of public prosecutions.

Above all, Mbeki has been perceived as inaccessible by all except his closest handlangers, such as Essop Pahad, minister in the presidency, who did not make it onto the NEC either.

More importantly, there was at the conference an obvious abyss between rank-and-file ANC members and the party's old guard, the former NEC members. The members want change and they made this abundantly clear.

Right from the start of the conference, Lekota, who was chairing the conference, never stood a chance.

He would say "Amandla", clearly expecting an "awethu" in response.

But the 4 000 delegates, or what seemed like most of them, simply went on singing Umshini wami. So, trying to quiet the crowd and grasp their attention, Lekota shouted "Amandla!" even more loudly and firmly.

But the delegates simply weren't having any of that. They sang "Bring me my machine" even more loudly, at least four or fives times. They effectively shut Lekota out of the conference, just as he and many of his colleagues, including Kader Asmal, would be shut out of the NEC later in the conference.

The ANC's leaders diverted their eyes and looked sombre and flummoxed. Frene Ginwala, former speaker of the house, who also did not make it on to the NEC, looked appalled. Even Zuma, who appeared extremely tense - his facial muscles were bunched like a fist - did not smile at the singing of "his" song.

It grew even worse. When Lekota showed that he was irritated and growing angry, the crowd stood up and made the signal of soccer fans when they want one player substituted for another - they bicycled their arms around and around in the air. This signal is also said to be the sign of "the Zuma tsunami".

Fourth, the palpable irritation of delegates with the old guard is not just about personalities. If one speaks to many delegates, one senses a deep anger over the fact that they have not cashed in on the new South Africa, as have others; that, despite fine-sounding words, ordinary people still remain mired in unemployment, poverty and generally sucking the hind one.

In addition, there is a kind of irritation at the apparent national obsession with Zuma's alleged corruption - the delegates know what it's like to need money and help - and with the fuss over his rape trial.

They feel that they know what happened at his house - that it was a story as old as time - and they are tired of righteous words about morality and ethics.

So we have seen at Polokwane a seminal moment in South African history. The people of the ANC - whether by themselves or spurred on by the Youth League and the left, or both - have taken the party back and warned their leadership that they want to see a bit more action and less talk.

One wit remarked that the list of people on the new NEC looks like a Who's Who from the programme Crime Watch - Zuma himself, Winnie Mandela, Tony Yengeni, Baleka Mbete, Jesse Duarte, Tshabalala-Msimang and a few others.

Well, the people have spoken.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4183033**

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