Publication: Cape Times Issued: Date: 2005-11-30 Reporter: Allister Sparks

Mbeki's Great Opportunity

 

Publication 

Cape Times
Date 2005-11-30

Reporter

 Allister Sparks

Web Link

www.capetimes.co.za

 

Time for fence-mending in ANC

With Jacob Zuma self-destructing, President Thabo Mbeki has a great opportunity to do some serious fence-mending within the ANC.

As nearly every analyst has noted, the Zuma saga has been less of a manifestation of support for Zuma and his political ideas than an expression of resentment against President Thabo Mbeki and the way he has run his administration and treated his alliance partners.

Zuma has simply been the symbolic figure whose dismissal from the deputy presidency caused these smouldering resentments to break surface.

There is nothing in Zuma's record to suggest he is a credible champion of the left. There is no trace of Marxist DNA in any of his political utterances. As the SA Communist Party's Jeremy Cronin says, he is simply a traditionalist with a strong working class-cum-peasant demeanour - and it is this which has given him the image of someone who can relate to the poor.

That, plus the fact that as deputy president he was in pole position to succeed to the top job when Mbeki retires, was enough for the left to believe he would be more sympathetic to their cause and would give them a better hearing than Mbeki, whom they feel has marginalised them and treated them disdainfully.

This is the perception Mbeki should now address. He has been made harshly aware of the strength of feeling against him. He was given a rough going over at the ANC's national general council meeting in July; he has had his effigy burnt outside the courthouse in Durban; and there have been derogatory songs and slogans about him.

He should be analysing the reasons why, and if he is smart he will start doing something about it now that Zuma has flattened his own tsunami and created a moment of political calm in which everyone can do some reflecting.

If he does not, the problems will resurface, for although the pro-Zuma sentiment may dissipate, the anti-Mbeki resentments will not.

The ANC will close ranks in the face of the upcoming local government elections, but after that the grievances will reappear - especially if the elections go badly for the ANC with a low turn-out.

What is it that the left, especially the alliance partners, dislike about Mbeki? And how might he fix it?

In part it is his remoteness, the impression he gives of intellectual aloofness, of not being a man of the people and of not including his alliance partners in the decision-making processes of government.

Mbeki tried, not without some success, to redress this image of himself during last year's election campaign, when he travelled widely throughout the country, addressing rallies and pressing flesh. It helped, but he has not kept it up - apart from the occasional imbizo - and his image has reverted to that of the suit-and-tie leader who is not really comfortable among his own people.

But it is the commandist style of his administration that is the core problem. This, and the resentment of it, stems in part from the different cultures that arose during the struggle years between the exiled ANC and the activists back home.

The United Democratic Front, which emerged on the home front, was a remarkable alliance of more than 1 000 civic organisations hastily brought together for the common purpose of resisting apartheid and rendering the townships "ungovernable" .

Each member organisation of the UDF retained its own identity and autonomy, and instead of a single leader the alliance had an overarching co-ordinating committee whose task was to reach a consensus agreement among all the members on a day-to-day basis.

The result was a high degree of bottom-up participation in the decision-making process. It was dubbed "people's democracy" and excited the young activists who dreamed of that becoming the way the new South Africa would be governed.

The exiles, for their part, evolved a diametrically different culture. Its central and most important element was the guerrilla army, Mkhonto we Sizwe, and armies are anything but democratic in their culture.

They are commandist, with orders handed down by commanders who expect them to be obeyed unquestioningly.

This is not to say that the ANC in exile became an authoritarian organisation. Oliver Tambo, the exile leader, was himself a notable democrat, but there is no doubt the military culture influenced the organisation as a whole.

Moreover, the fact that the exiles were scattered around the globe made "participatory democracy" in decision-making difficult. Decisions had to be taken at the leadership centre in Lusaka and communicated to the scattered units.

Infiltration by apartheid regime spies and assassins also induced a degree of paranoia among the exiles.

With the unbanning of the ANC and the return of the exiles, these two different elements had to merge.

Initially the euphoria of liberation, the negotiations and the establishment of democracy under the reconciliatory hand of Nelson Mandela obscured the differences.

But as the Mbeki administration took over, the commandist culture which the exiles brought home with them became increasingly evident and it rankled among many of the internal wing, or "insiles" as they now call themselves, who felt they were being thrust aside by the returnees who regarded themselves as the true custodians of the ANC's ethos.

It was not all a matter of personality and culture, of course. There are also ideological differences. As Cronin notes, the ANC came to power in a post-Cold War world where there was an assumption of a new global era which required a modernised regime that would follow "best global practice" of fiscal discipline and good governance within a capitalist system.

To that end Mbeki built a powerful presidential centre within the state, driven by a new political elite of state managers and technocratically minded ministers, and supported by a new generation of private-sector BEE manager-capitalists.

He did the same within the ANC, transforming it from a mobilising mass movement into a modern electoral party which again involved building a powerful centre around himself as ANC president which handled "politics", while the secretary-general's office was reduced to a dry bureaucratic role.

The consequence, Cronin's analysis suggests, is that these presidential nodes became commandist centres of power in both the government and the ruling party, marginalising Cosatu and the SACP and causing the ANC to cease being a popular mass-based people's organisation.

Even parliament has diminished in importance as the manager-technocrats run the show. "People's democracy" has withered on the vine.

Mbeki now has an unexpected opportunity to address and rectify these grievances. If he doesn't do so, the grievances will come back to bite him whatever the ultimate fate of Jacob Zuma.

• Sparks is a veteran journalist and political commentator.

With acknowledgements to Allister Sparks and Cape Times.