Kgalema Motlanthe from Xuma to Zuma

Isn’t it ironic that South Africa’s new president Kgalema Motlanthe was born in 1949 — the year that Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma, who had been ANC president from 1940 to 1949, was ousted by radical elements within the party, particularly the ANCYL, who believed that he was too moderate?

Dr Xuma, a medical doctor who had been educated in America and later Europe, returned in 1927 to set up practice in South Africa. In 1940 after being elected president he set about successfully rebuilding a fractured ANC, which included bringing in young upstarts like Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.

In 1948, against a backdrop of the National Party election victory, pressure for more radical action began to intensify which culminated in him being replaced in December of 1949 by Dr James Sebe Moroka, a far more militant president whose rise to power had been championed by Youth Leaguers Sisulu and Mandela.

Kgalema Motlanthe, South Africa’s new president and the man being tasked once again to heal a fractured ANC, was born in July of 1949. His path would cross with Sisulu and Mandela as he was imprisoned on Robben Island for terrorism from 1977 to 1987. Upon his release he was to serve as secretary general of the National Union of Mineworkers before replacing Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC secretary general from 1997 to 2007.

At Polokwane he emerged as the deputy president of the ANC and enjoyed widespread appeal among all South Africans who witnessed his moderate approach to matters while militancy and radicalism abounded. This continued post-Polokwane, with Motlanthe one of the few leaders prepared to stand up to militants within the party and the Tri-partite Alliance.

Crucially at Polokwane Motlanthe’s name appeared in the top six of both Zuma and Mbeki delegates. A candidate acceptable to both factions, moderate and with enough backbone to raise the hopes of all South Africans that a peacemaker and stabiliser had arrived.

While the ANC must be rapped on the knuckles for reaching the point where their only solution was deemed to be removing the sitting president eight months from term, with all the attendant upheavel that this has caused, they must also be credited with the democratic way they went about it, the discipline they have shown in organising its implementation and the attempt to bridge the divide between the two factions.

Perhaps as a way of celebrating the new president’s arrival the ANC could purchase a set of strong spectacles and a hearing aid for Essop Pahad who never saw or heard anything to indicate that there was a split in the party. Personally I’d have an oversight committee check all his work just in case he misheard or couldn’t see the people giving him instructions.

The new president’s task is not going to be easy …

He has to ensure that the local and international community accept that the ANC and the government have now got the factionalism under control and that it’s business as usual. This means enforcing discipline inside the party, the government and demanding it from alliance partners.

He has already been at pains to point out that the economic policies are to remain and that this will be continued during his term. This will bring focus to bear on the discussion papers of the SACP due to be tabled shortly as well as Trevor Manuel’s mini budget.

The party has to show that it is giving priority to poverty, unemployment and crime.

All of this while reassuring those who are awaiting a Jacob Zuma presidency that Motlanthe is the interim president awaiting their choice at the next election as opposed to the ANC’s alternative choice for the long-term.

This brings us back to Dr Xuma, a moderate who united the fractured ANC in the 1940s only to be driven from office by those demanding radical changes to the organisation. In the case of Motlanthe economic policy, which has ensured sustained growth, is being maintained. This may well be unacceptable after the election in 2009 when the ANC left, SACP, Cosatu and the ANCYL demand radical changes as payback for supporting Jacob Zuma.

Makes you blink doesn’t it?