There were two ANCs on display this week. The old Zuma ANC and a possible new Ramaphosa ANC.
On Tuesday, the old Zuma ANC was represented by secretary-general Ace Magashule, who announced the decision by the party’s national executive committee to recall Jacob Zuma.
The way in which he phrased the recall – “We did not take these decisions because comrade Jacob Zuma has done anything wrong” – was emblematic of the uncomfortable, inward-looking politics of a closed organisation.
In this world, the protection of the leader against the slings and arrows of criticism - and those flung by the criminal justice system - trumps all else. And so Magashule said: “Forget about fake news [on] Russian nuclear or any other thing that disrespects President Zuma. We still believe in him as a leader.”
It was the sort of double-speak that a closed society without an interrogative media might have been fed during the Cold War. And even then not believed.
The next day Magashule was nowhere to be seen. Addressing the media after the ANC’s caucus meeting were treasurer-general Paul Mashatile and chief whip Jackson Mthembu.
It was like night and day.
Our people want to see change. They want to see the new leadership taking over the management, not only of the ANC but of the affairs of the state
— Paul Mashatile
Mashatile made it plain that unless he resigned on Tuesday, Zuma would be voted out by a motion of no confidence on Wednesday.
Mashatile put it bluntly:
“Our people want to see change. They want to see the new leadership taking over the management, not only of the ANC but of the affairs of the state.
“We don’t have time to be bickering about who should be president. We have elected president Ramaphosa, he should be the president. All is clear, that is how we move ahead.”
The contrast between these two styles neatly illustrates the transition that the ANC has to make if it is to win back its lost support and successfully rebrand itself as the party of action that responds to public anxiety.
The party has to lift its gaze from its navel to the horizon. If it does so, it will see millions of sceptical voters trying to decide whether or not they can bring themselves to vote for it in 2019, and it will attempt to talk to them.
Later on Wednesday evening the old ANC was on display again, this time represented by deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte. No public reasons could be given for Zuma’s recall because this might hurt his family’s feelings, she said.
— Ramaphosa has no choice but to modernise the ANC and do so quickly
It seems incredible, but in this old ANC universe, Duarte would have us believe that it would be insensitive to tell the public why their president was being fired because this was a private matter between him and the party.
Ramaphosa has no choice but to modernise the ANC and do so quickly.
He needs to demonstrate to the voting public that it is a rejuvenated, outward-looking party that places the interests of voters first. This cannot be a fake, a sleight of hand, a magician’s trick ahead of an election. There has to be a clear and decisive break with the past, and a public embracing of accountability and transparency.
It is a moot point whether or not the ANC can win back lost voters, especially those in the middle and working classes who have deserted it over corruption and the parlous state of the economy.
But one thing is certain – the old ANC of Jacob Zuma, even with a new leader, has no chance.
Decisive action to wrest control of the criminal justice system back from Zuma’s deployees would go some way to doing this. High-profile party leaders and their associates facing the music in court would also begin to change perceptions.
But the real change has to happen inside the party.
It can no longer be a club of activists sharing the spoils of power and protecting themselves against scrutiny and the consequences of bending the law.
The organisation needs to reform the way it deals with party officials who are involved in corrupt or illegal activities by introducing a new, tougher code of conduct.
The first and most obvious step that Ramaphosa can take is to move quickly against captured cabinet ministers who aided abetted and benefitted state capture by firing them. He has the momentum to do so now.
When credible evidence of a breach has entered the public domain – those implicated should be suspended and subjected to swift disciplinary processes. It is not sufficient to say that the person has “not been found guilty by a court of law”. The party needs to decide what its standards are and enforce them, court action or no court action.
How would such a code operate in practice? When the forthcoming Zondo commission on state capture sits, more detailed evidence of how Zuma and his cronies looted the state is going to enter the public domain.
The party needs to be seen to take action against those against whom such evidence is presented as and when this occurs, and not take the position that it is awaiting the outcome of the commission. Zuma used court processes to avoid consequences very effectively only because the party tolerated this and abetted him.
To achieve proper accountability, the party has to professionalise its disciplinary processes so that it can be shown to be acting swiftly and decisively – and in public – against such actions when they are exposed.
The party’s communication with voters needs to be modernised. Communicating with party supporters – and the country at large - should not be last on the list of things to do and then only at election time.
Open, clear, professional communication needs to replace the "need-to-know" culture in which a president can refuse to take questions on those rare occasions when he deigns to speak to the media.
— In such a murky terrain, screened from the public, Ramaphosa will be vulnerable
The reform of party structures is essential to winning back lost voters.
A lot is being made of the parlous state of the opposition now that they have lost heir Zuma bogey man. But they will recover quickly if Ramaphosa is seen to be nothing but a kinder, gentler Zuma presiding over a captured party.
But it is crucial that Ramaphosa reform the ANC for another very important reason.
If the opaque Zuma culture persists, Ramaphosa will find his authority undermined at every turn as lobbies influence decisions behind his back and attempt to drag the party back into the mire.
In such a murky terrain, screened from the public, Ramaphosa will be vulnerable. A coalition of the wounded – those fired for incompetence, facing trial for their part in state capture, or those whose snouts have been taken out of the trough – would come after him just as similar coalitions of the disaffected took down Mbeki and Zuma.
A restructuring of the party to align it with the electorate would place him on a sounder footing.
A lot of South Africa's political dysfunction is the result of the misalignment of the ANC’s internal structures with its core voter populations.
At present Gauteng brings the ANC the most national votes, but it is by no means the largest province when it comes to votes at an ANC conference. The same is true of the Eastern Cape, which is underrepresented in party decision-making.
The result was that, although Ramaphosa had far greater support than his rival for the party presidency, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, among ANC voters according to opinion polls, the vote was very close at the ANC conference.
A decade of allowing Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal stronghold and neighbouring Mpumalanga to dominate party structures has seen the ANC lose sight of issues that are very important to its urban base. E-tolling has severely damaged the support the ANC enjoys in Soweto and Johannesburg.
The party ignored warning signs when they were flashing red. When the crowd booed Zuma at the Mandela memorial in Soweto in December 2013, the ANC brushed this off. In 2016, it lost the metro – and a swathe of other urban areas - to opposition coalitions.
Unless these voters are persuaded that the ANC is a party that represents them by the 2019 election, the party will lose Gauteng, Ramaphosa or no Ramaphosa.
The challenge of party reform is daunting and the work will be thankless. But if it is not undertaken, the old ANC will drag the party down and no one will be able to save it.
Ray Hartley is the author of Ramaphosa: The man who would be king
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