On September 7 2017, in a fit of hyperbolic bluster typical of the man, then police minister Fikile Mbalula declared in parliament, “Don’t worry about the thugs who are hijacking the state, I am going to finish them before Christmas.”
Christmas came and went. So did Mbalula’s job. And, if Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s book is anything to go by, the thugs are doing just great. Thus, this week Mbalula, now the head of the ANC’s election campaign, would complain that all these allegations of corruption were hurting the party’s election effort
It is difficult to know what exactly to make of the ANC’s election campaign so far. It’s a shambolic mess to be sure, but quite why that is, is hard to say. The problems are many and various.
There is the corruption, of course. And a lot of it, exemplified by a party list that reads more like a criminal charge sheet. Eskom is, so far as the opposition goes, the gift that keeps on giving (to the extent that the DA seems to have abandoned its jobs message in favour of a “keep the lights on” campaign). In Alexandra, the ANC is doing everything in its power to replicate the chaos that cost it Tshwane in 2016. It’s a dog’s breakfast out there. But it’s all held together by an actual campaign, which seems entirely nebulous and ramshackle.
ANC leaders traipse around the country talking to “the people”, most of whom spend their time telling the ANC in no uncertain terms just how shit it is. All of that is met by understanding nods and assurances that things will be different. “The people” seem generally indifferent to all this but the majority of them are also locked into some sort of profound Stockholm Syndrome and so don the requisite t-shirt and once again pledge their political soul to the ANC now and forever, regardless.
Watching the ANC campaign is like watching a bank robber make his way through all the staff he has just held at gun point, promising them all it was just a big misunderstanding, and then giving them a hug as they once again hand over the keys to the safe.
And the drivel that comes out of the ANC’s collective mouth really is something to behold. “SA will soon be corruption free,” Cyril Ramaphosa said in November. You have got to give it to the ANC — the party has a sense of perspective about as wide and deep as a pinhead. Either that, or it can no longer distinguish fact from fiction. Or both. Don’t for a moment think the EFF is the only party that promises the world.
What is the point of the ANC? Can anyone answer that question? All it seems capable of promising is a cure to the disease that is the ANC. Point that out and it insists, very earnestly, it is best placed to solve the problem that is the ANC. And so round and round the conversation goes: we need the ANC to help fix the ANC. It’s mad. Quite mad.
You literally have a majority party — the incumbent government — that has designed an entire election campaign against itself. Ramaphosa euphemistically bemoans about “nine wasted years”: a decade gone, billions stolen, infrastructure destroyed, jobs wiped out, 83,000 businesses annihilated.
But be sure to vote ANC. The ANC has a plan. Or, at least, the ANC will have a plan. Just after the election. It will reveal it. It’s kind of like God’s will — it moves in mysterious ways. But there is a plan, even if we cannot divine it.
You know all this. It has all been said. And that is kind of the point: we are long done with words and meaning. There is no word that actually means anything in SA today. We trade exclusively in hope and optimism. In what, no one can quite say. But don’t bother trying to actually describe something rationally: statistics, quotes, policies, evidence, trends over time, track records, performance measurements — these count for absolutely nothing. They all are rendered null and void in the face of some unarticulated and deep psychological desire to self-harm, all wrapped up in that ultimate SA delusion — hope.
The ANC’s greatest achievement is a very simple one: it has finally and absolutely separated action from consequence. It was a tenuous link to begin with but what the 2019 election will prove, once and for all, is that it doesn’t matter what the ANC does, it will be met by no meaningful repercussions. Rationality was the link. It has now been replaced by faith. When that happens, two plus two can equal whatever you need it to.
A saint is a sinner who is always trying to correct his ways.
— Kgalema Motlanthe, March 3 2003, on Tony Yengeni
Way back when, before he was calling for the ANC to actually lose an election, when the great ANC religion still had him in its grip, Kgalema Motlanthe would say of Tony Yengeni, “A saint is a sinner who is always trying to correct his ways.” This week Yengeni suggested on Twitter that the necklacing of DA Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba was something we could all look forward to.
The thing about Yengeni is that he has never tried to correct his ways. Why would he? There were never any meaningful consequences for them. Even his jail time was reduced to a farce.
And that’s the ANC’s election campaign for you. That’s all it is — the promise that promises don’t mean anything.
Against this backdrop, there seems to be only one thing missing: an apology. Now there is a thought. Why has the ANC never said, in no uncertain terms, that it is sorry?
And, principles aside, don’t think that that would necessarily be electoral suicide either. Actually, it would probably play quite well. A culture of catholic repentance is actually fairly hardwired into the public mind. We love a good apology. We must believe it to be genuine and authentic of course — we are very strict about that — but only insofar as we are able to convince ourselves. But repent appropriately, fall on your sword and beg for forgiveness, and it will be given unto you.
A grand apology would seem to be the one thing missing from the ANC’s strategy, such as it is. If the ANC is both the sinner and the redeemer, surely, it must confess? And not some half-hearted, fleeting euphemism hidden away in the depths of a speech or statement. The real deal: a public address from the president, that sets it all out; that cleanses the ANC’s rotten soul. Just the pretence of some pseudo-remorse would probably do, just enough for people to believe it true.
But it cannot. It will not. Because, the fact is, it does not believe it has done anyone any harm. In the ANC’s eyes, the party is not of this world. It is not mortal but eternal and inherently pure; the embodiment of the will of the people, a political deity. It forgives; it does not not seek forgiveness. If God is all good, he cannot apologise, for then he would cease to be God.
Besides, no one in the ANC seems able to discern exactly where sin begins and ends. Ramaphosa happily lent his name and credibility to the devil. Now he walks the earth damning him by implication. Turns out Thabo Mbeki secured Ace Magashule’s first foothold in the Free State government. Pull that thread and whole church will unravel.
There is a reason, on pain of death, the Catholic church fought for so long and so relentlessly to avoid any honest admission that all the sexual assault allegations it faced were symptomatic of a profound disease. It was God’s house on earth. But even it had to eventually relent, even if only partially. Even the Catholic church made an attempt to apologise.
Not the ANC though.
The ANC owes SA nothing, and it has nothing to offer SA in turn. There is only the idea of the ANC. The alpha and the omega, which must exist from first principles. Everything else is just a means to that end.
ANC billboards in this election promise to deliver “A South Africa you can believe in”. That is religiosity for you: it is not about what the church has actually done, but what the church claims to represent.
SA will be soon be corruption-free. You need only believe. Christmas is only eight months away. What presents will we find below the leafless skeleton that is the Christmas tree this year? It doesn’t matter, it all about midnight mass, a time for SA to huddle together and give thanks to the ANC, which died for our sins.
And as its great leader stands at the altar, his hands dripping with failure and contempt, the stained-glass window behind him broken and rusting away while he reads from the good book about how heaven will soon come to earth, the one thing he will never offer up is contrition. For that, he will always look first to the congregation.
• Van Onselen is the head of politics and governance at the South African Institute of Race Relations.
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