As it attempts to renew itself, the ANC appears set on a mission to destroy internal democracy. Though well intentioned this is likely to hobble it further.
Last Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the party’s president, presented a new smart card for ANC members, claiming that the party was taking advantage of technological advances.
The card, featuring the faces of the ANC’s founders on its back, is also supposed to deal with the incidence of “gate-keeping”. Roughly, this practice allows members to own other members. In theory and in practice, a member who doesn’t meet the basic requirements can find themselves as ANC members in “good standing.”
In a way, this is also the reason that the ANC is weakened by factionalism. Members are won over not through ideas but through gatekeeping.
In terms of Ramaphosa’s announcement, all members will now be required to reapply for these new smart cards and be vetted and approved or declined. So far, so good.
Days earlier, however, Fikile Mbalula, the party’s secretary-general, put a new spanner in the works: he decreed that regions of the ANC, and by extension provincial structures, cannot hold elective conferences without members undergoing the ANC’s foundational courses. This is significant.
The ANC veterans, under Snuki Zikalala, have been asking for all members to reply in a desperate bid to weed out careerists and opportunists who join the party to plunder state resources.
Mbalula’s announcement has far-reaching consequences. It means branches and regions cannot hold elective conferences. Without regions, there can be no provincial conferences.
Already, two of the ANC’s provinces — KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng — are run by unelected officials such as stalwarts Jeff Radebe and Amos Masondo. This has caused resentment among the marginalised but elected officials.
A wider implication of Mbalula’s decree is that the two provinces will be represented by these hand-picked officials. If this was an aberration, it wouldn’t matter much. But it isn’t. A pattern is developing.
In the past few years, the ANC has failed to convene important constitutional gatherings such as the national general council. In a united party, this lapse wouldn’t matter, but the ANC is hardly such a party. It is busy eating itself alive.
If Mbalula has his way, it would mean that this year’s national general council, due later in the year, would be held with unelected delegates. What mandate, if any, would these delegates be carrying?
This is a blow to internal democracy and hardly a step towards strengthening renewal. It is common cause that the ANC has, for years, been infiltrated by careerists and opportunists. But this is not the way to nip this in the bud. Internal democracy is as important as fighting corruption.
There are many reasons to worry about Mbalula’s announcement. In a year, the ANC, which lost last May’s general elections, is due to contest local government elections. It has been rejected by voters across several metros.
Without elected structures, it means the ANC will be imposing candidates onto the communities. It is bad enough that our electoral system doesn’t prioritise a constituency-based electoral approach.
Internal party democracy is as important as external party democracy. If the ANC still harbours an ambition to govern the country, it should start taking internal democracy seriously. Halting regional conferences is a bad idea.
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