The ANC’s 55th national conference, held on December 16 in Nasrec, is of vital importance to all South Africans. This is because, in South Africa’s dominant one-party democracy, the real power lies not with parliament, but with the ANC’s five-year national conferences.
It is in national conferences, and not in parliament, that the country’s leadership is decided and future political guidelines are set.
The conference adjourned on December 20 and met again on January 5 to adopt its resolutions, the content of which has not yet been made public.
The centrality of the national conferences was made abundantly clear at the 52nd national conference in Polokwane in December 2007. A “coalition of the wounded”, led by the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Cosatu union federation, the Youth League of ANC and others opposed then-President Thabo Mbeki—gained the support of 60% of the delegates—and was thus able to take control of the ANC.
His victory quickly led to the demise of Mbeki and his orthodox Gear macroeconomic policies and the end of Xhosa ascendancy in the ANC. More seriously, he paved the way for accelerated radical economic transformation, rampant corruption, and then-President Jacob Zuma’s attempts to capture key state institutions and state-owned enterprises.
At the 54th national conference in 2017, Cyril Ramaphosa won the ANC presidency by a handful of votes against Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who many observers believed was a surrogate for her ex-husband and the factions that had led the ANC since 2007.
The 55th national conference will also have a crucial impact in South Africa. The 4,426 voting delegates elected Ramaphosa to another term as ANC chairman with a comfortable 56.62% majority over former health minister Zweli Mkhize, who was widely seen as the candidate of the RET (Radical Economic Transformation) faction. ).
Delegates also elected the ANC’s seven top leaders, including Paul Mashatile as vice-president; Gwede Mantashe (SACP Chairman and Minister of Resources and Energy) as National President; Fikile Mbalula (transport minister) as general secretary; Nomvula Mokonyane (former Premier of Gauteng) as first Assistant Secretary General; Maropene Ramokgopa as Second Assistant Secretary General; and Gwen Ramokgopa (former Mayor of Tshwane) as General Treasurer.
The strengthening of Ramaphosa’s position, with strong support in the new leadership team, was generally welcomed by the markets and by most South Africans as the best in a series of far worse results. Anomalously, the top seven do not include a single representative from KwaZulu-Natal, even though the province sends more delegates to the national conference than any other province.
Ramaphosa emerges from the national conference in a much stronger position. The ANC endorses him as his best 2024 election prospect and the Phala Phala scandal, which seemed to pose a deadly threat to his career just weeks ago, is now fast fading into the background.
However, his campaign to restore the integrity of the ANC, which is the central pillar of his platform to “renew” the organization, will be seriously, and perhaps fatally, complicated by the election of the top seven and 80 national members. executive committee of a significant number of cadres that have been stained with corruption by the Zondo commission.
The outcome of the national conference’s other main task of charting the ANC’s course for the next five years will not be clear until it publishes its resolutions, which have not yet been published. Of particular interest will be the resolution on the ANC’s “step aside” policy for members who have been charged with criminal offences.
However, the general line that the resolutions will take has already been detailed in the proposals for the July 2022 policy conference and in Ramaphosa’s statement at the end of the first session of the conference.
The political conference based its recommendations on the latest version of the ANC’s strategy and tactics document, which sets out the organization’s ideological assessment of the progress it has made with its national democratic revolution (NDR) since the previous national conference.
This includes an analysis of the balance of forces and the steps that need to be taken to correct the errors that impede progress towards the national democratic society – the ANC’s shining city on the hill – which will have a mixed economy in which jobs, land and wealth will be shared on the basis of demographic proportionality, thus resolving the national grievance caused by colonialism and apartheid.
The strategy and tactics document includes large portions of Marxist class analysis, critiques of the West, capitalism and neoliberalism, as well as expressions of concern over the impact corrupt elements of the “lumpen” class have had on support for the ANC. .
The bad news is that the ANC remains staunchly committed to the NDR and, 29 years after 1994, to an ongoing “struggle against colonialism of a special kind (white South Africans) in which the liberation of blacks in general and Africans in particular” is the strategic intent.
The good news is that the ANC remains committed to the Constitution and constitutional democracy, against growing demands for “parliamentary democracy” in which the majority in parliament could do as they please.
In his speech, Ramaphosa recommitted to the NDR. He referred to the conference’s discussions on proposals “that will accelerate radical social and economic transformation” and its deliberations “on the actions we must take to, once and for all, address the original sin of land dispossession.”
The conference had “agreed on measures to accelerate land reform…not only because justice demands it, but because it is a necessary condition for the growth of an inclusive economy.”
As is so often the case now, there is a yawning gulf between rhetoric and reality in the way forward suggested by the ANC:
- There are visions of accelerating “the deployment of mobile and fiber infrastructure in rural areas and municipalities” in a country with a declining capacity to generate basic electricity.
- There is an acknowledgment of the “need to resolve the burden reduction crisis” at a conference that had just elected Mantashe as national president, who precipitated the resignation of Eskom’s Andre de Ruyter by accusing him of plotting to overthrow the state. Mantashe, who opposes the transition from coal-fired plants, also vehemently disagreed with De Ruyter’s view that green power is the only long-term solution to the energy crisis.
- The president, who chaired the ANC deployment committee for years, insisted that “we need to hire people because they are competent and committed, not because they are connected.” At the same time, his call for a “new cadre” of recruits raised serious questions about his willingness and ability to address one of the main causes of dysfunction within the state and state-owned enterprises.
This sense of unreality has continued in the ANC’s key January 8th anniversary statement, which is a mix of nostalgia for the revolutionary struggle and a wish list of all the things that must be done to achieve a better life for the majority every day. increasingly desperate South. africans.
One comment that rang true in Ramaphosa’s closing statement at the national conference was his acknowledgment that “corruption within the ANC is a serious threat to the continued existence of our organization and to the future of the NDR.”
In his second term as ANC president, he will have to consider how he can achieve his two seemingly contradictory main goals of bringing integrity and renewal to the organization on the one hand, and maintaining ANC unity on the other. If past performance is any guide, he’ll just keep talking about both goals.
The reality the president will have to deal with is the continued presence of so many people at the top of the ANC who have been tainted by corruption. But, as he warned, “this conference has recognized that we have no choice: either deal with corruption or perish.”
You are absolutely right. If the ANC fails to tackle corruption, and if it does not reconsider the disastrous impact of its NDR ideology on prospects for economic growth and social welfare, the 55th national conference may well be the last time it will have the power to determine the future. leadership and country policies.
Winning back the confidence of South Africans will be the most difficult task for the ANC and will require decisive action that puts the interests of the people and the country before the party.
Dave Steward is President of the FW de Klerk Foundation
