The ANC is an antiquated organisation. Its internal systems and structures are the remnants of another age and have never been adapted or developed to meet the demands of a modern democracy, or the modern world.
The implications are numerous, but lethargy would seem to be the most common consequence. It is a slow, ponderous machine. Never quick or agile. Any issue is fed into the system, and by the time the relevant rusty gears have been cranked and rickety levers pulled it could be weeks or months until the public is presented with an outcome.
One area in which the problem is most pronounced is its communications. It is not just the snail’s pace at which the ANC is able to respond, it’s that its language is slow and convoluted in turn. It lacks clarity and brevity; if not, then originality. Outside the semi-literate ravings of the ANC Youth League, you don’t ever read anything from the ANC that jumps off the page. It is a bureaucracy and you read only to try to understand whatever process is at play, as you would the terms and conditions on a new kettle.
There was a time the ANC did inspire; when our democratic world was new and ANC leaders had a story to tell. But that is all long gone now. Watching Jacob Zuma or President Cyril Ramaphosa plod through a speech, monotone and indifferent, is painful. ANC media statements are so couched in ambiguity or vagueness — usually to avoid culpability — you are left wondering whether anything was said it all. And ANC policy is no less lifeless. A dour affair, technocratic and banal, all hedged with words and phrases drawn from the Soviet Union in the 1940s.
Where it really matters most — elections — ANC campaigns are dull and unbelievable. Its slogan for the 2021 local government elections was, “Building better communities together.” No-one is going to get out of bed for that. In fact, bed is the first thing you think of on reading it.
Here are the ANC’s official election slogans for every election since 1994:
1994: “A better life for all”
1995: “A better life: Let’s make it happen where we live”
1999: “Change must go at a faster pace!”
2000: “Together speeding up change”
2004: “A people’s contract to create work and fight poverty”
2006: “A plan to make local government work better for you”
2009: “Working together we can do more”
2011: “Together we can build better communities”
2014: “Together we move SA forward”
2016: “Together advancing people’s power in every community”
2019: “A people’s plan for a better life for all”
2021: “Building better communities together”
They tell a story. “A better life for all” was one of the great political slogans the world over (although, to be fair, Jan Smuts campaigned on that in 1943). Short, crisp, powerful and captivating. It embodied the majesty of the ANC’s task, not easy to do. Hope was hard-wired into it. It demanded you use your imagination, and in doing so provoked a positive idea of the future. It was believable, too.
As time advanced, and the ANC regressed, however, so its slogans became more obscure and inane. They grew in length and thus complexity (“Together advancing people’s power in every community”) and a subtle shift in emphasis and responsibility was introduced, away from the party and towards “the people”.
“A better life for all” (1994) was the ANC’s offer. That was what the party promised. “A people’s contract to create work and fight poverty” (2004) was an attempt at an agreement — that responsibility was a joint exercise. From there, every second slogan emphasised that only “together” could progress could be made. As the ANC’s moral authority collapsed, so it began to outsource responsibility, and lost self-belief. It was pleading more than convincing.
By 2019, it seemed it was all on the people: “A people’s plan for a better life for all.” Makes you wonder why the ANC was needed at all. It was now a mere bystander, at best a facilitator, for a vision and purpose that came from elsewhere. It was no longer leading, but following.
Ironically, as the party moved its language from the ANC to the people, so its vote collapsed. The more it seemed to emphasise “togetherness”, the less anyone wanted to have anything to do with the ANC. In politics, people look for, and sign up to, a vision. They want to know what you will do for them. They don’t want a prenuptial agreement.
But it’s also so boring, and lazy. Every election, another iteration of the same idea. The order of the words is shuffled but nothing substantive changes. It is hard to say when imagination died inside the ANC, but its bones have been rotting in the ground for some considerable time now.
The party has tried to dabble in social media, in an attempt to generate the pretence it understands that the world of political communications is changing, and the ANC with it. But it is all a farce. You can deliver some morose speech in person, or tweet it, line by line. It’s the speech that is the problem, not the medium.
Modern political campaigns have at their heart critical public interrogation — town halls and debates — but for the ANC it is carefully orchestrated media briefings or bust. You are lucky if you can even get that out of the ANC president. And on pain of death will it debate its opponents. It won’t even announce its senior leaders — mayors or premiers — until after an election. But “together” is the call, like an arranged marriage, where you only meet your partner after you made your vows.
Part of the problem is the ANC’s attitude towards itself. It believes it is inevitable, and thus its programme of action not a response to society — its concerns or issues — but an exercise in imposing itself onto society. If the ANC is pre-eminent, it need not react, only dictate. That even its dictates are now so pleading tells you just how weak it is. Weak and cowardly.
With the ANC’s vote below 50%, you feel this has to change. The party has to learn to run a modern election campaign — to develop messages that inspire, that are grounded in contemporary affairs, and to restructure its communications apparatus to respond to people’s issues. If it cannot, if it insists on pursuing its vapid historical formula, its death will be a lot quicker and more brutal than predictions would have you believe.
Words alone are not a solution, of course. The best ideas are believable. And there is precious little the ANC can credibly put on the table these days, that doesn’t come across as fantastical. When the DA says it “gets things done”, people know what it is talking about. At the same time, you cannot be visionless. The ANC might need to build up the necessary evidence for a meaningful and imaginative offer, but even that will count for naught as it cannot frame it in a way that wins hearts and minds.
You feel, however, this is all beyond the ANC. Too much time and power has produced a ubiquitous indolence, in thought and deed. It comes across as disdain, as detached and uninterested. Tells you a fair bit about Cyril Ramaphosa too: rarely are his reforms — such as they are — critically interrogated as they apply to the ANC. It needs a reformation no less than the economy. That he cannot even produce a modern election campaign — something entirely within his power — tells you, as ever with the ANC, its self-image remains immutable.
The ANC has forgotten how to lead. Importantly, it has forgotten too how to talk about leadership. And all those attendant ideas — inspiration, originality, specificity, conviction and purpose — are lost, too. It is like a broken computer, able to churn out only the hard binary code on which its ancient software was built. No-one cares — not when there are iPhones and satellites tracking out there. When it comes to communication, it needs a Steve Jobs. But it’s populated by luddites.
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