Zuma and Lekota a catalyst for positive change?

The time has come for the ANC to abandon finally the mentality of the liberation movement and become the government of the people of South Africa.

Accept that all this talk of divorce and dissention is a blessing in disguise rather than the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. The Zuma trial with all its ramifications as well as the Lekota breakaway threat are going to prove beneficial in the long run if the lessons are learned and the warnings heeded.

Polokwane, often seen as the turning point, was merely symptomatic of something that runs far deeper within the party and even the tripartite alliance. In essence, that power is an end in itself rather than the starting point towards achieving designated goals. The time has come for the acceptance of the reality that once a member is a minister or part of the government, his or her first loyalty has to be to the people of the country and not the party.

It must, by now, be abundantly clear to the ANC that the things that it fears the most are in fact vital to the long-term survival of the party itself and the country’s well-being; that in trying to control everything, all it is doing is risking it all on one throw of the dice, which is a recipe for disaster.

Let’s start with the way in which the government is elected. If each member were required to stand for Parliament rather than being placed on a list, then the electorate would decide whether they were fit to govern based upon their performance. While the ANC, via the delegates or otherwise, could still decide on which candidate to put forward in a particular constituency, the member concerned would quickly learn that he or she is accountable for their actions. This would enhance performance, reduce corruption and place the onus on the members to behave themselves.

Of course the party would also seek to sanction members because its image then becomes important to each candidate who will pay for the party’s ineptitude. Members will demand malcontents get booted out because failing to do so would affect the party’s credibility and, in turn, theirs.

Vitally, this will put an end to the type of threat we are witnessing right now. If you wish to “die for Zuma”, good luck at the elections because people in your constituency will want to know why you place one leader above the party for which you are asking them to vote, and why service delivery, not great while Zuma was deputy president, is less important than revolutionary talk.

In the case of Lekota’s faction/party, questions will be asked about why — considering that most of his senior members were the government for the past two terms — service delivery was a joke, the arms deal ignored and the Scorpions abandoned if corruption was so important, and so forth. Leaders will no longer be able to rely on the moronic and the revolutionary because while it may impress a leader, it’s going to go down like a lead balloon with the electorate swamped by Zimbabwean exiles, no electricity, no fresh water, no houses because council members took pay-offs to be put on the list, and so on.

The NEC, in turn, other than specific selections from the delegates at the party conference, should be drawn from those members who have been elected by the public. In that way the decisions will be geared at ensuring a party and a government that is functioning properly. The discipline and smooth running of the party will be infinitely easier when the sanctions lie with the people of the country and party leaders. In addition, MPs will have a vested interest in ensuring that their little patch, their constituency, is well managed — or else.

The people will in turn ensure that the ANC and the government stick to their policies as first outlined in the Freedom Charter and later carried forward to the interim and final constitutions, and as set out in the party’s own constitution as amended at Polokwane in 2007.

In terms of alliance partners, the ANC would have to decide in conjunction with them which parties, if any, it wanted to put forward as candidates. This would then leave it up to the electorate to decide whether they wanted SACP- or Cosatu-based individuals in Parliament — as opposed to the rumblings we’ve seen where the partners are suggesting that they might each be given a third of the seats. This call, if unchecked, will become louder and louder. Left to the electorate this would be put in its rightful perspective, whatever that may be.

Overall the party would be a lot stronger because it would be made up of people who have a vested interest in doing the right thing by their electorate — that is, the people who stand by those policies, not an individual leader. A leadership issue of the kind we are experiencing must never again be allowed to threaten the continued well-being of the party and the country as it is doing now, with loyalty to individuals rather than the party driving calls for a split or revolution.

The fact is that the overwhelming majority of South Africans still owe allegiance to those policies and not to individuals or other parties allied to the ANC. This needs to be built on now lest it be tried when sentiment is otherwise, with disastrous results.

This restructuring must also apply to the appointment of strategic heads of independent state institutions. The police and prosecution heads, for example, would then rely on the people and not the government for their positions. This would avoid a repeat of the ongoing debilitating exploitation of these vital organs and begin the fightback against corruption, which, in tandem with politicians being directly accountable to the electorate, would cut corruption down to manageable levels quickly.

It would also ensure that the police chief could close down politicians threatening violence against the country in the blink of an eye. As the ANC is now acutely aware, the lack of respect for people, the party and even the elders has affected it negatively. By allowing the police to do their job, it removes the need for the party to do so.

In addition, had the arms deal, Kebble and all the other divisive investigations been within the police and prosecutors’ domain from the start, the damage to the party and lingering resentment would have been miniscule in comparison to what it is now. They would have been dealt with and the country would have moved on. Instead we have a situation whereby the electorate is extremely concerned about the political capital owed by Jacob Zuma to the alliance partners for their support throughout the faction fight.

Instead of clear-cut investigations being dealt with by independent parties, we’ve seen individuals making political mileage by threatening the country, the alliance partners calling for a third each of the seats in Parliament, the split being threatened by Lekota and others, and the early recall of a president — all of which has weakened the party itself. I need hardly point out how much stronger the ANC would have been right now if the police and prosecutors had simply been left to do their jobs.

By retaining the policies of the ANC but making the members and independent state institutions directly accountable to the electorate, you strengthen the party immeasurably and avoid the dangers that we are witnessing right now.

In your perceived weakness lies your strength.