CAROL PATON: Green shoots of change as orange enters the political scene

Watching the ANC’s abusive misgovernment and mismanagement of the country is indeed like being trapped in a nightmare. There is no escape as electoral success stretches into the future, with the ANC assured a dominant place in the government even if as part of a coalition.

“Everyone is complaining; it is like a nightmare from which you can’t awake,” Rev Frank Chikane said last week at the launch of yet another campaign to complain about the ANC, without mentioning those three letters specifically.

Chikane, the courageous churchman who was the general secretary of the SA Council of Churches in the 1980s, was speaking at the launch of the Defend our Democracy campaign, which aims to rally people in defence of the constitution, and specifically against its degradation by former president Jacob Zuma.

With him are many of the men and women who were active in extra-parliamentary politics over that period, from Cheryl Carolus to Saths Cooper and Mavuso Msimang. The SA Communist Party, parts of Cosatu, Business Unity SA, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse and dozens of lobby groups and foundations such as the Helen Suzman Foundation, Thabo Mbeki Foundation and Corruption Watch, were among those at the launch. Like the Save SA campaign that led the marches against Zuma while he was president, political parties have not been invited, the idea being that individuals join the protest across political lines.

Also significant is the participation of former DA leaders Mmusi Maimane and Lindiwe Mazibuko, who have supported it, giving a sense that a new political centre across party lines can be found.

They plan a big day for protest action on Thursday, the day the Constitutional Court hears the Zondo commission application to have Zuma declared in contempt of the commission and sentenced to jail. On that day, and when going about their ordinary business, they want South Africans to wear orange face masks and wave orange flags and banners.

But how significant is this as a political development? Is this a pop-up campaign designed to see Zuma either testify or be jailed, or will it be a more lasting affair?

While the campaign is positioned around Zuma’s defiance of the constitution and the law, the language makes clear that the outrage goes far beyond that. The declaration states, for instance, that this is not just about an individual but about an anti-democratic political culture that has gripped the ANC. That culture is one of “the cult of personality, rule by factional dictate, nepotism, and totalitarianism in a securitised state”, it says.

This campaign also stands out from previous iterations, such as the Save SA campaign, because it is a campaign against a Cyril Ramaphosa-led ANC. Many of the people supporting the campaign would have backed Ramaphosa and imagined he would or could clean up the ANC. This is a recognition that the ANC cannot be relied upon to solve its own and SA’s problems. In fact, it is the problem.

But who will say so? Former activists and leaders from within the ranks of the liberation movement are reluctant to be frank. The campaign is similarly cautious. Even though the ANC is yet to condemn Zuma’s behaviour with regard to the Zondo commission, the campaign has not called on the ANC to speak out. Instead, it plans to call on parliament to do so, a disguised call for the ANC to take a position.

Activism and political work is not easy; it is a grind. It means working on holidays, weekends and late at night for nothing, very different to the lifestyles the leaders of the 1980s have come to enjoy. Those speaking up in support of Defend Democracy are ageing, tremendously comfortable and, in fact, have been the greatest beneficiaries of the democratic transition, having left politics for business and to take leadership positions in lucrative professions. Among them, there was a noticeable absence of youth and only a thin spread of African leadership.

There is also the small matter of the pandemic. With social distancing, people cannot be mobilised in a show of force, which is an essential part of building political momentum, so much of their protest will have to be virtual.

While this might not be the Orange Revolution, it is a further fracturing of the once mighty ANC — with signs, this time, of the green shoots of political change.

• Paton is editor at large.