|
Is the ANC Falling Apart? |
| Publication |
Cape Argus |
| Date | 2009-02-14 |
| Reporter | Bronwyn Gerretsen |
|
Web Link |
Opposition parties and political commentators are united in their opinion
that the resignation of ANC spokesperson Carl Niehaus on Friday after admitting
to fraud is yet another sign that the once mighty organisation is
falling apart ahead of the general elections
on April 22.
This comes in the same week that ANC Youth League president Julius Malema was
forced to apologise to Education Minister Naledi Pandor after saying "she must
use her fake accent to solve our problems" while addressing striking students
and staff at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).
He was also reprimanded for saying IFP president, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi,
was "like dictator Robert Mugabe".
The bitter in-fighting in the party started on
June 13, 2005, when then president Thabo Mbeki fired his deputy Jacob Zuma after
Judge Hillary Squires had sentenced the latter's financial adviser, Schabir
Shaik, to 15 years in prison for corruption and fraud in 2004.
However, Zuma had his revenge at the ANC conference in Polokwane in
December 2007 where Mbeki was ousted as party president.
Mbeki then became a "lame duck" President until he was recalled in September
2008.
President Kgalema Motlanthe took over as caretaker President.
Since then there has been a steady purge of Premiers and officials perceived to
be pro-Mbeki.
During the course of this year the party suffered its biggest blow yet when two
of its most senior members, former minister of defence and ANC chairman Mosiuoa
Lekota, and former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa, resigned to form COPE.
Ian Davidson, chief whip of the DA, said with Friday's scandal surrounding
Niehaus topping an ever-growing list of crises affecting the party, the DA
believed the ANC had crumbled too far and
would not be able to resurrect itself.
"I don't think the ANC can pick itself up out of this. The party is not held
together by a value system. It is a matter of who
can milk the system to the best possible degree."
He said people had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and, while
this had in the past been accepted as part of the party's culture, there was a
new generation of citizens not prepared to accept it.
Davidson said another reason for the ANC's woes was an ineffective leadership.
He said because the party's principle base was made up of arch communists,
capitalists and trade unions, there was no direction as too many people were
pulling in different directions.
There were also people within the party who recognised the weakness of a Zuma
presidency, he said, and were already "circling like vultures", all positioning
themselves for some sort of role in the Presidency.
"The party is wracked with tensions," he said.
Political analyst, Professor Adam Habib, said it took 90 years for freedom
fighters to build the liberation pedigree of the ANC and today's leaders
a mere 15 years to destroy it *1.
He said the inability of ANC leaders to withstand the
temptation of political office and
the power that came with it was just one
dilemma the party faced, adding that this was evident in not only the Zuma camp,
but the Mbeki camp too, starting with the
implication of members in the arms deal *2 and the controversy over Tony
Yengeni and special deals with Mercedes Benz.
"The inability to withstand the temptations is part of the structural dilemma
the party is facing.
"The discipline of the ANC is also beginning to fragment. You now have a guy
like Malema who shouts his mouth off, and people are incapable of hauling him
across the coals," he said.
He said people needed to understand these two manifestations of the ANC's power,
otherwise they would not be able to come to terms with how this liberation
party's 90 years of sterling struggle could end in tragedy.
"There is no question that if they carry on like this, it will destroy the ANC,"
Habib said.
Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lille said, in the ANC today, South
Africa was witnessing a complete erosion of the values and vision that the party
fought for in the struggle against apartheid.
"People are no longer in positions of power to serve the nation and to make sure
that they achieve the vision and values that the ANC fought for.
They are there to enrich themselves. It is all
about money. The ANC has lost its soul," she said.
De Lille said the in-fighting was about positions, getting rich, and winning
tenders and contracts and the party was on shaky ground.
"The ANC has taken the South African voter for granted. To them, it is almost
unthinkable that they can lose support.
"Just like Zuma said, the ANC would govern until Jesus comes. That is the kind
of arrogance in the party."
De Lille said while the ANC could win the upcoming elections, it would certainly
have lost supporters.
Koos van der Merwe, the IFP chief whip, said the ANC had lost its cohesion which
was, in 1994, freedom and liberation.
Freedom Font Plus MP Willie Spies said one got the impression that 15 years of
good ideals and broadening democracy were being diluted into a "blatant struggle
for power".