Bruising+battle+on+road+to+Limpopo,+Xundu+and+Harper,+Sunday+Times

Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 17 December 2006
=Bruising battle ahead on road to Limpopo=

//Provincial machinations point to a divisive, dishonourable path to next year’s ANC conference, write// **Xolani Xundu** //and// **Paddy Harper**//.//

President Thabo Mbeki must have felt relieved when news of Stone Sizani’s election as chairman of the ANC in the Eastern Cape reached him two Sundays ago.

More pleasing still must have been the part where the fifth provincial conference passed a motion from the floor backing him for re-election as the party’s president at its 52nd national conference to be held in December next year.

This must have come as a welcome, if temporary, reprieve for the Big Chief, as Mbeki is affectionately known by those who adore him in the ANC, because his life has been a living hell since he fired ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma from the Cabinet in June last year.

But the defeat of former Eastern Cape Development Corporation chief executive Mcebisi Jonas by Sizani — a fierce Mbeki loyalist — and the vote of confidence passed on Mbeki’s leadership, in fact point to more trouble ahead for Mbeki and for the ANC as an organisation.

Even though on the face of it there was good news for Mbeki at the Eastern Cape ANC conference — held at the University of Fort Hare two weeks ago — it actually underlined the level of dissatisfaction within the party over Mbeki’s leadership and his bid for a third term as leader.

The Eastern Cape will have the biggest delegation at next year’s national conference in Limpopo and, while Mbeki has repeatedly ruled out a third term as President of South Africa, he has hinted that he might seek a third term as party chief if asked by ANC structures.

For the first time since he took over from former President Nelson Mandela, Mbeki has at last managed to get both the Eastern Cape government and the ANC provincial executive committee on his side, a result of many years of political footwork.

Under former ANC chairman and current Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile, the Eastern Cape was never an uncritical and kowtowing Mbeki ally. In some instances, it indirectly held him responsible for engineering the annulment in 2002 of its provincial conference because it elected a leadership “not to the liking” of the national leaders.

The annulment by Luthuli House was viewed as a direct attack on Stofile’s leadership, but the party headquarters stuck to its guns, maintaining that the leadership was elected by an “improperly constituted conference”.

More worrying, the outcome of the conference at Fort Hare proved that there are deep-seated divisions within the structures of the ANC over the issue of succession — between those who are calling for continuity and those who are calling for new leadership to tackle the internal challenges faced by the organisation.

The defeated Jonas, a former political adviser to Stofile, is viewed with suspicion by Mbeki loyalists in the province and nationally because he refused to speak out on the succession issue, saying the structures would have to decide on who should lead the ANC after analysing the challenges it faces.

Looking at the numbers, almost half of the 1585 voting delegates at the conference were against the resolution to back Mbeki for a third term , but it was passed nevertheless.

Moreover, the conference showed that the ANC is no longer a platform for robust political discussions over policy issues, as proceedings were dominated by who should replace Stofile and his executive committee, to the detriment of content issues.

In four days of conference, commissions sat for only half a day as delegates were preoccupied with lobbying for positions, busy objecting to perceived irregularities regarding credentials, and tied up in the registration process.

Sizani left his post as Education MEC in 2002 (pre- empting his firing by Stofile), but now serves a purpose and is therefore back in the ANC camp that has powers to dispense patronage.

A delegate described the election of Sizani and his executive as “a victory that will deliver the province from the yoke of oppression”.

But the Eastern Cape conference showed that, in an attempt to please those individuals who are in a position to dispense patronage, members will go to great lengths — and elect a leadership that kowtows to the whims of those they seek to please.

Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela is reportedly going to reward this group — and give Sizani a position in her provincial Cabinet. Had Sizani not managed to block Jonas and his group from taking over the ANC, Balindlela’s life would have been made miserable.

The conference highlighted the weaknesses of the ANC electoral system in that people who want to achieve certain outcomes can effect deliberate manipulation.

The credentials and registration processes were a mess and actually delayed the start of the conference for about a day. The secretary’s report was presented to delegates whose credentials were not confirmed and the conference proceeded to elect a leadership without having dealt with these major flaws.

In the neighbouring province of KwaZulu-Natal, meanwhile, there is a growing perception that the ANC leadership has failed to provide leadership on the Zuma issue.

A day before the election of Sizani a and endorsement of Mbeki’s third term, large section of the crowd which had gathered at Pieter-maritzburg’s Harry Gwala Stadium for Moses Mabhida’s reburial heckled and booed Mbeki and walked out en masse — in a seemingly orchestrated manner — as Mbeki began speaking.

The event was meant to be the day ANC factions buried the hatchet, setting aside the tensions over the race for the party presidency — long enough at least to bury Mabhida, one of the liberation movement’s greatest unifiers, with the respect and dignity that he deserved.

The ANC has downplayed the numbers involved in Mbeki’s public humiliation, but the debacle raises serious questions about the party’s ability — or willingness — to control its own membership in KwaZulu-Natal, and the depth of the internal schism over the succession and surrounding the corruption prosecution of Zuma. To think that this was merely a KwaZulu-Natal issue would be naive, however. Throughout the country there is a belief that Zuma is the target of a political conspiracy driven by Mbeki to keep him out of the race for the ANC presidency.

This is a belief that is most focused in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, but one to which his supporters elsewhere subscribe, even if outside KwaZulu-Natal they have neither the numbers nor the space to behave in the way they did in Pietermaritzburg.

Resolutions of the party’s National Executive Committee and its National General Council have stressed the need to support both Mbeki and Zuma. This has been implemented effectively nationally at party and government rallies, imbizos and other functions — with the glaring exception of KwaZulu- Natal, where the much-publicised programme to “educate” members has failed.

Ugly incidents at court appearances — including the burning of Mbeki T-shirts and the pelting of police with missiles in Durban — have all gone unpunished. Investigations have had no results: no one has been disciplined or kicked out of the party for publicly humiliating the President.

This raises concerns about the provincial probe and the latest initiative by ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe to publicly shame hecklers.

Success for the province will depend on whether this highly unpopular — but nonetheless vigorous — investigation will bear fruit.

As Mbeki basks in an Eastern Cape victory and the party deals with his KwaZulu-Natal humiliation, both incidents have set the tone for a bumpy road to Limpopo.


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/article.aspx?ID=343415**

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