Growing up in the Free State, Ace Magashule was synonymous with impenetrable power. He walked on water, or at least it seemed that way to me.
Having received his political training in Tumahole from the revered Fezile Dabi (Magashule’s home region would later be named after him), the former ANC secretary-general had a swagger about him.
It didn’t hurt his struggle credentials that he crossed paths with Chris Hani, an association those who have nothing else to offer the country hide behind. His persona became even more pronounced when, after helping Jacob Zuma emerge as ANC president at the watershed Polokwane conference in 2007, he was rewarded with the premiership of the Free State, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
Before that, he was a prince who could not wait to be king as the Thabo Mbeki-led ANC continuously snubbed him for the position. Like a prophet, Mbeki seemed to have cast his eye into the future, and saw the wreckage Magashule would bring to the people of the Free State.
Alas, in came Jacob Zuma, who ushered in Magashule as premier — a position he would hold for 10 years — Free State’s version of 10 wasted years.
As ANC chairperson in the province, he worked hard to ensure Mbeki’s preferred premiers would not last. He did this through surgical precision, adding to his legend. An ambitious politician, like many of his comrades, Magashule still had his eyes on the ultimate prize, that of the president of the ANC and the country.
Foolishly thought
He got closer to the throne at the ANC’s Nasrec conference at which he was elected by a razor-thin margin to the secretary-general position, a coveted position in the ANC. True to form, he foolishly thought he would run the affairs of Luthuli House like he nonchalantly ran those of Kaizer Sebothelo, the ANC provincial quarters.
He failed to seize the moment. And we are all the better for that. Now, his political career is in tatters, gathering unwanted records along the way.
In 2021, he became the first sitting secretary-general of the ANC to be suspended after he was charged with graft during his time as Free State’s number one citizen (some would argue the province’s number one crook). Now he stands accused of assisting in the looting of R255m from the Free State, one of the country’s poorest provinces — in a project meant to eradicate hazardous asbestos roofing, prevalent in most areas there.
The erection of asbestos-roofed houses was the callous work of the belligerent apartheid regime, a racist system Magashule fought. Many poor households in the province continue to have the hazardous material as their roof. Talk about the revolutionary spirit of Magashule.
His shame would not end there. He now faces expulsion from a party whose colours, he claims, still run through his blood.
Lucky few
His misfortune, if you ask his comrades in the Free State, is long overdue. He is notorious in the province for having ended many political careers prematurely.
Some, like Sibongile Besani, head of the ANC presidency, and Mxolisi Dukwana, the Free State premier and ANC chair, were the lucky few who managed to stage a comeback. Many others were not so fortunate. He had a famous phrase in Sesotho that he used to send fear into the hearts of both friends and enemies: Ha o sa bape le nna o tla ja dikatana. (You will eat rags if you’re not with me). And many did, and continue to do so.
His once cult status in the province has been reduced to a few rambling souls, still pining for the good old days of the munificence of Operation Hlasela, his signature programme while premier.
Magashule’s imminent ouster from the ANC, after the recommendation by the party’s disciplinary watchdog for his expulsion, is also a reflection on the party itself.
How does the party explain that a man who just five years ago was elected by its membership to the influential and strategic position of secretary-general is now on the verge of not even being worthy to be its card-carrying member? The answer is too uncomfortable for the ANC to confront. Magashule is a mirror in which the ANC must look at itself in its illusionary self-correction pursuit.
The ANC is being opportunistic. It wants to expel him for having dared to suspend Cyril Ramaphosa in the party’s palace politics gimmicks. The party sat and cheered him on as he ran the Free State down. His later elevation as secretary-general was the final assault by the party of the people in the province, who watched how governance deteriorated under his narcissistic rule.
If a person of Magashule’s calibre could pass through the ANC’s so-called eye of the needle, it is as wide as the Big Hole in Kimberley.
The collapse of the Free State is his true legacy. He must own it. And with all the time in the world on his hands, he must take a tour of the pothole-dotted province and drown in shame. He deserves it.
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