Coping beyond mere personalities

Just as I was drafting the final instalment of my reflections on the state of the Congress of the People (Cope) one year after its much celebrated launch, the party took the wind from under my sails. Luckily I was not the only one, as the party simultaneously dealt a blow to its Youth Movement and its supposedly secret-yet-circulated-to-the-media draft discussion document calling for the national leadership to step down.

Though I did not appreciate having to revise the entire angle of my post, the party’s admission that lack of elected leadership lead to problems of legitimacy and Mbhazima Shilowa’s confession that the young party faced “serious challenges”, is a positive and welcome step.

After all, there is the oft-repeated truth: admitting there is a problem is the first step to recovery. Apart from deflecting the negative press garnered by the leaked Youth Movement discussion document, the secretary-general’s report also announced the long-awaited policy conference — scheduled for February — which would, it can only be hoped, provide further substance to the policy positions and raison d’être for the party.

There is also very little doubt that, as analysts and party loyalists alike agree, that the public perception of a lack of legitimately elected leadership was compounded by the media having a field day with “reports of internal divisions, leadership squabbles and tribalism”.

To be sure, lobbying and squabbling over leadership positions is part and parcel of politics, which ultimately is about (perceived positions) of power. And where the p-word is involved, squabbling inevitably follows. Gordon Brown and post-Blair Labour serves as a prime example — even though this has done very little to seriously harm the already dismally performing party in pre-election polling. Closer to home, even the Post-Polokwane ANC’s internal leadership issues are well publicised¹ ² ³, and apparently even the DA has issues!¹ ²

Yet, I don’t believe this is necessarily a bad thing, to borrow from the old ANC phrasebook, it’s all in support of the necessary and commendable “fierce contestation of ideas”. Although it does admittedly harm a young party’s image when leadership squabbles arise over positions devoid of any real, tangible power.

Besides the reported tribalism, internal divisions and leadership squabbles, certain individuals in the party — in its first year of existence and as reflected in its election lists — failed to convincingly deliver representatives that represent its “progressive” and “new agenda of hope and change”. Case in point being serial and veteran party hopper, former DA and ACDP parliamentarian and opportunist Graham Mackenzie, who now unfortunately represents Cope’s KwaZulu-Natal voters in parliament. It can only be described as a serious miscarriage of progressivism and as a blemish on the party’s agenda, and I have yet to be convinced that the leopard has indeed changed its spots.

The willingness of the party to gobble up personalities — counter-intuitively and counter-productively — is perhaps my own greatest criticism of the organisation. Especially with dubious characters like Peter Marais having been associated with Cope at one stage.

It is therefore understandable that the party is perceived to be without principles and revolving instead around personalities and positions. This despite incredibly competent and effective representatives, including hard-working individuals like Phillip Dexter, Nolitha Vukuza and Mvume Dandala. Keeping up with parliament’s Hansard kept by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group reveals sterling contributions by Cope MPs to the general discourse and debate in the institution. Unfortunately, South African media houses fail to take parliament seriously enough to report on these (who can blame them, really?) and its own website fails dismally at keeping an up-to-date, accessible online Hansard.

If the party hopes to be a “patriotic opposition, knowing when to rise up and oppose that which is not good for our country, and support that which advances our progressive agenda for change and hope” as Mosiuoa Lekota in this month’s The Thinker conveys in reflecting on the year ahead, it requires both a substantiation of and tangible commitment to “progressivism” and true hope for South Africa. Hope, as discussed by Xolela Mangcu in his 2009 The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma, that is neither optimism nor pessimism, because these “assume that people are spectators who survey the landscape and infer on the basis of evidence around them that things would get better or worse”. Hope, instead, assuming “that people are participants who act in and on the world” (emphasis added).

If anything, the leaked Youth Movement document has forced the party to go into corrective mode, admit to problems, and demonstrate a commitment to producing a fresh crop of legitimate leaders while allowing its members to actively participate in the process. It is also reassuring to hear Shilowa confess that “our approach is not aimed at polishing our image. We do welcome the criticisms from the youth movement”, allowing a platform for meaningful and honest debate, involving the youth in particular. A lesson many movements and governments have failed to learn, despite the pivotal role played by the youth in modern-day social and political revolutions (Iran in particular springs to mind and even Obama’s ascension to the presidency).

When it comes to Cope, it is evident that the tenacious Youth Movement will continue to play a vibrant and pro-active role in taking the organisation forward, demanding that the voice of the youth be heard and refusing to back down in relation to its call for the national leadership of the party to step down.

The party’s national policy conference and subsequent elective conference provides the ideal opportunity to exercise “participatory” hope and substantiate on a true progressive agenda for change, departing at last from a perceived first year of mere squabbling personalities and jostling for positions. This is particularly important if the party hopes to adequately demonstrate that it can capture the imaginations of ANC and opposition voters alike, especially when it claimed that the ANC lost its soul and has departed from the principles of its founders, a claim even made and lamented by ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.