A major early setback for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s clean-up of the ANC, a key platform for his presidential bid, was the party's resolution on its integrity commission.
The implication of Ramaphosa losing that key battle at the party’s 54th national conference at Nasrec is that his attempts to polish the ANC’s image and clear the rot will be held hostage to the whims of factions in the party — as it was during the Jacob Zuma era.
The ANC discussed a proposal at the conference to give the integrity commission more teeth; to allow the commission itself to take firm decisions in ordering members bringing the party into disrepute to step aside. The debate, however, was lost by Ramaphosa’s supporters and the argument — by Zuma loyalists such as Supra Mahumapelo and Mzwandile Masina — was that allowing the commission such powers would make it more powerful than the party’s national executive committee (NEC).
The argument went that the NEC was the highest decision-making body between conferences and, by allowing an integrity commission the ability to take such critical decisions, its status would surpass that of the NEC. And so the battle was lost. The full effect of that setback was clear for all to see this week, as the ANC in Gauteng defied a decision by its integrity commission for embattled provincial executive committee members Qedani Mahlangu and Brian Hlongwa to be suspended from their leadership posts in the party.
Mahlangu is at the centre of the Life Esidimeni scandal, which resulted in the deaths of more than 140 mentally ill patients, and Hlongwa was implicated in corruption and fraud allegations amounting to R1.2bn in a Special Investigating Unit report dating back to his tenure as health MEC between 2006 and 2009.
The Gauteng ANC — the province most harshly punished by voters for the destruction the party has wrought in the last decade — disagreed with the integrity commission on Mahlangu and Hlongwa, saying it did not have the power to pronounce on the membership of the pair or their participation in structures. It is understood that while Mahlangu’s re-election to the province’s top leadership structure in Gauteng irked its newly elected chair, David Makhura, there was little he could do to block the move.
The Gauteng provincial executive committee is dominated by a grouping that supported economic development MEC Lebogang Maile, who lost the race for the post of deputy chair. But his backers hold a slight majority on the provincial executive committee, and Mahlangu is among them.
It is clear that factions still hold sway in deciding who accounts for their wrongdoing in the party. The ANC NEC’s decision on the national integrity commission decision that those implicated in the VBS Mutual Bank heist should step aside from all party positions and activities will be an interesting test of Ramaphosa’s sway on the party’s top leadership structure.
Those implicated were largely on Zuma’s side ahead of the Nasrec conference. The NEC elected at Nasrec was split between support for Ramaphosa and Zuma’s candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Whether the NEC agrees with the integrity commission will be a test of how many people have switched sides in the 10 months since Ramaphosa became party president.
While party dynamics remain a headache for Ramaphosa, he has much more room to manoeuvre in the state, which will come in handy when dealing with the train wreck that has come to characterise home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba’s affairs. The president retained key Zuma loyalists in his cabinet in his first reshuffle, a nod to the unity mantra emerging from the December conference by displaying that he was not purging those who backed his opponent.
Instead, he appears to be allowing these errant cabinet members to be worked out of the system through processes such as the state capture inquiry and, especially in Gigaba’s case, legal processes and their aftermath. While Gigaba’s personal scandals involving romantic entanglements and raunchy videos are a clear embarrassment, the court findings against him in the Fireblade matter and the public protector’s report released on Wednesday provide Ramaphosa with a golden opportunity to axe Gigaba and draw to a close his mediocre and scandalous career in government.
A court has found that Gigaba lied under oath, and the public protector decided that, in doing so, he violated the constitution and the executive ethics code. Whether Gigaba challenges Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s finding in court will mean little. Ramaphosa still has ample ammunition to get rid of him.
There is not much room for his opponents to argue that he is purging those who failed to support him when there are such clear and glaring judgments against the likes of Gigaba. Minister in the presidency Bathabile Dlamini may be next in line as court processes involving her draw to an end.
It is also through such processes that the disastrous suspended SA Revenue Service boss Tom Moyane, who was never going to go quietly, can be culled from his post permanently. The long game appears to be a more politically palatable solution for Ramaphosa to deal with errant ministers who refuse to fall on their own swords, as Nhlanhla Nene did.
On the one hand, this has been criticised as a weakness but, on the other, it is likely to solidify his political position both in the party and in the state.
• Marrian is political editor.
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