OP-ED: The dream we had of a glorious ANC has not been deferred — it has been destroyed By Zwelinzima Vavi
This is the context under which the 2012 ZuMantashe campaign took place. A very reluctant and usually very cautious Kgalema Motlanthe eventually agreed to stand in direct opposition to this train of the destruction of the ANC and its alliance partners. His very late entry into the fray did not help people seeking for an alternative.
Still, Cyril Ramaphosa had not been associated with corruption scandals outside the illicit cash outflow activities of Lonmin where he was a director, and the Marikana massacre, in both of which he was not directly involved. Even in the period when the campaigning towards the end of the Zuma term had begun being championed by civil society and joined by the opposition parties and even business, he kept on showering him with praises. By the time he opened his mouth following the dismissal of Pravin Gordhan as minister in March 2017, some of us had long written him off.
That ANC to which Kgalema Motlanthe referred included Cyril Ramaphosa, who had been a member of the NEC since 1991, a secretary-general and a heavyweight who became the deputy president. Above all, let us for argument’s sake make a point that the people who supported the current ANC president are all or mostly clean and are all pursuing this renewal and self-correction. Give me 20 of these leaders who are, and who can go through the eye of the needle, and tell me why they are not in the leadership to lead the renewal project.
I acknowledge that 51% may have grown bigger now. In the new ANC, individuals shift their loyalties based on calculations of what price individuals will pay for sticking with the forces that have lost power. The considerations now have to do with how individuals endear themselves to the leader and the faction he had led so that they don’t prejudice themselves when patronage is distributed.
I doubt that he has the backbone and support base even to implement the limited reforms demanded by the Mangaung conference of the ANC. There are no objective factors that exist today to drive a new movement towards a better life for all. There is no alternative today that our people trust that can bring back the ethos of Chris Hani’s ANC. That ethos of selflessness has been replaced by the capitalist ethos of “me first, to hell with everyone else”.
Nelson Mandela, for example, had 100% members’ and leadership support, and that’s how he could ram down our throats privatisation, neoliberalism and a Constitution that protects looted property.
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