Autocratic+leadership,+William+Gumede



=Autocratic leadership style has returned to haunt president=

Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, July 3, 2005

 * By William Mervin Gumede**

Things went horribly wrong for President Thabo Mbeki and yet everything seemed to have been neatly worked out.

Part of the plan was that this week's ANC general council would shunt sacked former deputy president Jacob Zuma into the local equivalent of political Siberia.

Moreover, this was supposed to be the moment when Mbeki regained his iron-cast grip on the movement and brought his critics, who were using his firing of Zuma to challenge his non-consultative leadership and policymaking style, to heel.

But Zuma, the man from rural KwaZulu-Natal who faces a damaging court case over alleged corruption, appears - at this council - to have risen Phoenix-like from the ashes. Mbeki and his centrist reformers had to gnash their teeth when even ANC national executive committee members joined rank-and-file members in rallying to the defence of the beleaguered former deputy president - in open defiance of Mbeki.

The ANC's formidable party machine had turned so devastatingly against Zuma that, hours before the start of the council, the former deputy president was humiliatingly not even issued a pass to attend the council sessions. Moreover, before the general council Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC secretary-general, were maintaining resolutely that Zuma would not feature at the event.

Days before, the ANC's national leadership stripped Zuma of his duties; he was banned from speaking at ANC events and was told it would be preferable if he stayed home. But angry Zuma supporters rose from the council floor, insisting that their hero not only be given the right to attend the conference, but that he take his "rightful place" on the podium next to the president.

Moreover, they demanded that Zuma be given back all his duties as deputy president of the ANC. The unexpected rebellion delayed the start of the council by a few hours. Heavyweight provincial branches, including KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, loudly insisted that Mbeki had gone too far.

Only Gauteng and Northwest haltingly backed Mbeki. For another thing, the ANC delegates and even members of the ANC's NEC saw Zuma's sacking not as part of Mbeki's determined drive to root out rising corruption in government and party, and to stop the moral decay that has paralysed the movement, but as another example of the president acting by stealth, without consultation and in breach of the ANC's internal democracy rules. A few Mbeki allies, like Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, offered a spirited defence of Mbeki, but they were brushed aside.

Astonishingly, it appeared in the stand-off between Mbeki-ites and the ideological mixed bag of pro-Zuma supporters, or rather anti-Mbeki ANC members, that the ANC's national general council could plunge into chaos not unlike that a few weeks ago at the Mpumalanga provincial conference, which had to be cancelled for a day.

The Mbeki supporters in the ANC leadership conceded defeat. They hastily restored Zuma's ANC deputy presidency functions and allowed him to sit triumphantly on the podium next to the man who had fired him.

More ominous for Mbeki, it was made obvious that the ANC faithful had caught on to a new trend whereby angry ANC delegates, upset by what they see as Mbeki's cold-hearted sacking and humiliation of Zuma, are seemingly starting to reject new policies inspired or thought up by Mbeki - no matter their merits.

It mirrors the trend whereby ANC members in the provinces rebel against premiers appointed over their heads by Mbeki, by voting against them at provincial conferences. Thus many delegates were set against attempts by Mbeki-ites to modernise the ANC along the lines proposed by the council document The Organisational Design of the ANC.

It calls for greater central control of ANC branches, and for the national leadership to play a stronger role in selecting local and provincial leaders, in an attempt to root out corruption and censure callous local leaders. Delegates saw it as another attempt at centralising decision-making on Mbeki and a select few insiders.

Mbeki's iron-cast leadership style has come back to haunt him, giving Zuma another lease on life and making it hard for the president to push through policies.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1078&fSetId=453