The parties that will take SA into the future still have to emerge, says former president and former ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe.
Implicit in his comments during a virtual conversation on Wednesday with Centre for Development and Enterprise executive director Ann Bernstein is a view that the ANC will not be a dominant force in SA in future.
“I think the ANC is within its right to embark on efforts to renew itself. However South Africans should not be bound by that timetable. SA should move on and at whatever point when the ANC believes it is a new formation it must catch up with SA,” Motlanthe said.
“I am saying this because I think the results of the elections in 2016, as well as last year, indicate that we are in a period of our politics being in a state of flux which must necessarily result in a realignment of political forces. I don’t think the current political parties represent the future. I think the kind of formations that are going to take this country forward are still to come and they will be fashioned by a realignment.
“The parties that are going to be serious players going forward are still to emerge.”
Motlanthe said the ANC leadership today accepted that unless it changed the trajectory of the party there was no doubt it would lose elections and become irrelevant to the SA polity. It was also important for it to resist being reduced to factions.
Already in 2007, when he was secretary-general of the party, Motlanthe raised concerns over the corruption that was beginning to eat away at the ANC and erode its moral values and democratic mores.
“Today the problem is far more deep-rooted across the board,” he said.
He was confident, however, that the ANC would apply its step-aside rule for those prosecuted for alleged crimes highlighted in the reports of the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.
The step-aside rule requires ANC members to vacate their positions until they have been cleared by a court of law.
On conviction, they would no longer be eligible to be a member of the party in terms of its constitution.
This does not apply if the sentence offers the option of a fine, as was the case with ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini, who was found guilty of perjury.
The ANC national executive committee still has to decide on her fate.
“It is the law. It is not dependent on the ANC’s likes and dislikes. It is the law, and the law will be applied effectively. The constitution of the ANC is straightforward on such matters, but if the leadership itself is compromised, then it leads to paralysis and the failure to act against obvious acts of malfeasance,” he said.
Questioned about his view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Motlanthe said this must be condemned, a line at odds with that of the government, which has insisted on remaining neutral and not condemning Russia. SA abstained from a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for the invasion.
Motlanthe was adamant that small employers should be exempt from the high wages determined through collective bargaining and that the Labour Relations Act should be amended to provide for this flexibility. They should also be exempt from paying tax when they are still in a fledgling state otherwise they will be suffocated. This was the way to create jobs, he said.
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