Spanners+in+the+succession+works,+Butler,+Business+Day



=**Spanners in the succession works**=

Anthony Butler, Business Day, 22 October 2007
As the 52nd national conference of the African National Congress (ANC) draws near, it is likely the Limpopo assembly will bring with it unprecedented electoral competition for important offices in the party.

The national executive committee (NEC) has already contracted an external technical agency to manage the elections, appointed an “elections commission” to oversee all stages of the process, and released an “information sheet” explaining how nominations will purportedly be made.

At first sight, the procedure seems well designed. The commission appointed to oversee the electoral process contains many stalwarts with hard-earned reputations for standing up to political pressure.

The technical agency is a capacity-building nongovernmental organisation that would appear to be nonpartisan, even if there will inevitably be doubts about its capacity to manage an election conducted at such high levels of emotional intensity.

Proposed nomination procedures also pay lip service at least to the notion that ordinary branches are at the heart of the process. After edifying deliberation about the qualities a leader should possess, branches nominate one candidate for each of the six key ANC offices: president, deputy president, chairman, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general and treasurer. They also make multiple nominations for the 60-seat NEC.

These branch preferences will be consolidated at provincial level — with the ANC Youth League and Women’s League counting as quasi-provinces for this purpose — and nominations then go forward to the national conference. There, ordinary branch representatives will vote not as the robotic servants of their branches or provinces but rather as deliberative cadres collectively seeking appropriate leaders for the movement.

Real-world obstacles, however, seem likely to impede this happy procession of imagined events.

First, controversy surrounds an audit that has disqualified many branches from making nominations or from voting. Disgruntled and disenfranchised members may arrive en masse at the venue. Organisers may respond with a security clampdown that would limit potential for deliberation. The results of elections may not be accepted as valid.

Second, delegates are guided by a profoundly undemocratic document titled **//Through the Eye of a Needle//**. Penned by the late Peter Mokaba in 2001, as part of a campaign before the Stellenbosch ANC conference to deter challengers to the Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma crew, it portrays office-seeking (by others) as illegitimate.

Competition for positions allegedly encourages “the pursuit of selfish interests” and unleashes “federalism by stealth”, which is ANC code for “ethnic factionalism”. Running for office also offends against “profound cultural practice”, a principle Zuma has most hilariously championed.

Meanwhile, individuals who have left politics for business and “then seek to come back only as leaders”, are considered to make untrustworthy candidates. According to Mokaba’s curious logic, branch delegates must seek the guidance of senior figures — mostly incumbent office-holders — before casting any ballots against those same incumbents.

Third, ambiguities in the proposed nominations process create the real possibility of unwelcome surprises. Provinces “may” call nominations conferences, the draft regulations state, suggesting local barons might instead consolidate nominations in a provincial general council or even behind closed doors. Provincial power brokers can also add or remove names by a show of hands on simple grounds of “enhanced representivity”. And a proposal from the Mbeki camp for “gender parity” to be enforced in December’s elections is likely to have a major effect on outcomes.

Finally, the nomination and voting protocols seem deliberately fashioned to worsen the polarisation between the Mbeki and Zuma camps. No matter how internally divided a branch may be, it can nominate only one person for each office. The final nominee for any position “should receive more than 50% of the votes of members present”. Provinces, no matter how complex their branches’ preferences, must resolve to support one candidate only for each of the major party offices. It is “the name with the most nominations for each position (that) will be the provincial nomination”.

At the conference, the electoral commission will select the three candidates for each position with the most nominations, and it will make these names known on the first day of the assembly. There will probably be only two names for the presidency: Mbeki and Zuma. Because any province can support only one candidate, the nominations process seems designed to produce a frontal confrontation between the two titans for the ANC’s highest office. Despite many activists’ inclination to support compromise candidates, there seems to be no way that the middle ground represented by Kgalema Motlanthe, Mosiuoa Lekota, Joel Netshitenzhe and Cyril Ramaphosa can be reflected in the nominations list and considered by the conference.

Only the last-minute withdrawal of Zuma to avoid his impending humiliation, or late nominations from the floor, can conceivably steer the ANC away from a head-to-head contest between Zuma and Mbeki.

Nominations from the floor for all of the big six positions will be invited, but a daunting 25% support from “eligible delegates” will be required, and this possibility can probably be precluded by procedural and emotional manipulation of the floor.

Unless the nominations process is amended, the polarisation it seems destined to promote will again benefit Zuma and Mbeki at the expense of the liberation movement. Zuma still has a small chance of prevailing, despite what many ANC members believe is his evident unsuitability for the highest office. And Mbeki will most probably win a third term despite his record as one of the most divisive presidents in ANC history.


 * Butler teaches public policy at UCT


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A592520**

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