A spell in the ANC's naughty corner

The expectation was that when the African National Congress — being the broad political church that it is — eventually fractured, the split would be between the nationalists and the socialists. It has since become apparent that the critical fault lines in the party are less ideological than they are around personal rivalries based.

For instance, the splintering that led to the formation of the Congress of the People was not on any issues of principle. The impetus was the disaffection sparked by the Polokwane putsch and the calculated personal humiliation of former president Thabo Mbeki by the supporters of his successor, Jacob Zuma.

So one should not read too much into Zuma’s rebuke of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema. The slap across Malema’s Breitling-encrusted wrist is more show than substance because Zuma, rightly or wrongly, believes Malema is crucial to his power base. Malema is also pivotal to a small but increasingly daring coterie that, similarly to Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe, is less interested in non-racial constitutionalism than it is in feathering its nest with some cross-racial plundering of assets under the guise of black empowerment.

It is interesting that Zuma’s rebuke, widely and erroneously perceived to put Malema in his place, does not even mention Malema by name. And though the statement rejects the ANCYL’s cosying up to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, it fails to repudiate the league’s embrace of Zanu-PF’s “courageous and militant” land distribution and “very brave, militant but very correct” policy of business indigenisation.

Some have read Zuma’s remarks as meaning that Malema will face disciplinary action. This is by no means certain.

Zuma spoke about a “need for discipline” and restraint, and warned that “undermining the leadership authority of the ANC … cannot be accepted” and that there will be “consequences” for anyone doing so. He concludes merely that the ANC “will deal with these matters internally as it deems fit”.

Given the value that Zuma places on Malema’s support, it is unlikely that the consequences of Malema’s outrageous behaviour will be any more serious than having to stand in the ANC’s naughty corner for a couple of hours. Already there are mutterings in the ANC national executive that Zuma was wrong to chastise Malema publicly, instead of acting more discretely behind the scenes.

In any case, any disciplinary action against Malema would presumably be framed in terms of Zuma’s statement that “the ANC Youth League is not an independent body. It exists within the umbrella policy and discipline of the ANC”. But that is not how the ANCYL sees itself. It believes itself to be mandated by the grassroots membership to play an independent, attack dog role.

This view was endorsed by the 2007 Polokwane conference delegates, who adopted a strategy and tactics document that states: “The organisational autonomy of the ANCYL always provides organisational vibrancy and the youthful political debate imperative to a revolutionary organisation.” Indeed, ANCYL behaviour over the past year supports the theory of “organisational autonomy” for these youthful revolutionaries. Malema has often proclaimed government’s supposed position with more authority than Zuma has. Even when such ANCYL statements contradicted policy articulated by ministers — on nationalisation and land distribution, for example — Zuma was either silent or evasive.

The tripartite alliance has for long wrestled with the conundrum of what degree of power and responsibility the ANC would concede to its partners, the SA Communist Party and the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu). This week just such a brutal wrangling session ended with what the ANC described as “blood on the floor” because Cosatu was accused by the ANC of behaving like an “opposition party” within the alliance.

It obviously must be embarrassing for the ANC to have an opposition in the ranks, especially since the workerist Left often blows the whistle on the “tenderpreneurs” and looting of state coffers, instead of joining in as is expected of it. The modicum of restraint that this engenders, however, is at least a positive contribution to government. That is more than can be said about the unabashed attempts by the ANCYL’s “autonomous revolutionaries” to hijack state power.

ANC Strategy and Tactics document: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/conf/conference52/strategy-f.html