ANC's real enemy not rich white men, but party itself

The empty rhetoric of the January 8 statement reflects the interests of a captured elite who are unwilling or incapable of making the changes the party needs, writes Imraan Buccus

It was interesting scanning the podium and VIP seating for the ANC's January 8 statement. It looked like an elaborate chess game. Both mandarins and pawns were moving in elaborate formations sussing out the state of play.

Moving forwards, backwards, diagonally and even in double-cross manoeuvres, the adage that where you sit is where you stand held true as the chess pieces carefully accommodated their ample derrières.

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It was less about unity in action than acting the part that this was a movement to be taken seriously. Perhaps not since the frenetic days of exile has the ANC been so fragmented and bewildered.

Even then, a core vision could still be sustained. It took the stature, standing and statesmanship of OR Tambo to hold the centre together.

That was a rare gift handed down one generation to Nelson Mandela, then left to dissipate under Thabo Mbeki, and disappear altogether under Jacob Zuma.

The incumbent president will likely go down in history as the one who won KwaZulu-Natal for the ANC but lost the country to the opposition.

It may not occur during his term in office, but it will more than likely be the curse he hands his successor.

When Zuma emerged victorious in the bruising battle at Polokwane, he promised to unite the movement and country, but his report card has been all but savoury. The clarion call has been sounded by no less than ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who is on record as saying that corruption, thieves and factionalism are destroying the ANC and will ruin it. Mantashe's call seems too little, too late.

The current power brokers in the ANC have demonstrated that they are unwilling, unable or incapable of recognising or arresting the decline.

It might be a moot point but the tools of Marxian analysis always point to a material basis.

The captured elite have a material interest in keeping things the way they are with scant regard for any other consideration.

The result of the August 3 elections ought to have been a rude awakening for the ANC. Instead, it fuelled only a sniffing out of detractors.

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The cry of the veterans was silenced behind process. The bogeyman of white monopoly capital was hauled up to conjure a dishonest narrative that blame does not lie with the current crop of the ANC leadership.

Are we to believe that after 23 years of holding all the levers of state power, the ANC and the country remain at the mercy of a coterie of rich white men?

That logic is puerile, juvenile and rogue. Among those sprouting it for some time through shadowy formations like the Progressive Professionals Forum is that great peacetime warrior Mzwanele Manyi.

Manyi wasn't in the war then and he has no appetite for the battleground for survival the ANC must now contend with.

The empty rhetoric of the January 8 statement will not tug the movement forward. This is a testing period for the ANC.

Everything is at stake with December's elective conference. The false humility common in ANC ranks is that nobody raises their hand for leadership. It is the party that deploys.

The seating arrangements last Sunday told a different story. January 8 was less about introspection, evaluation and charting the course than it was about less-than-concealed campaigning.

Where this is headed is still unclear. The optimistic scenario is that somewhere in the recesses of its vast history, talent pool and relentless energy will emerge a leadership fired up with the imagination that will be a lifeline for the party.

Sadly, unlike in the generation of Tambo, Sisulu, Mandela and Lembede, that faith cannot lie in the ANC Youth League. Zuma, the wily strategist, has been humouring the leagues because they are vote banks.

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Today the youth league adds no value to the mother body. It is a liability.

One leader who has not tiptoed around the youth league is KwaZulu-Natal chairman Sihle Zikalala. He publicly took it to task over its apparent support for Hlaudi Motsoeneng as a candidate for the national executive committee of the ANC.

He carefully couched his criticism within the policies and traditions of the ANC rather than seeking confrontation with the league. It's the sort of honest assessment in which the party's president is afraid to engage, preferring instead to play to the populist gallery.

Zikalala is a man to watch, not because he might have leadership aspirations, but rather on account of the fact that he is carefully schooled in political theory and strategy. Coming out as vocally as he has might endanger his trajectory in the party, but he is the sort of blood transfusion the ANC needs.

He has the intellect and sophistication that surpasses the Manyis and Motsoenengs by a mile. Whether he is a flower that's bloomed too early remains to be seen.

Zikalala is a chess player, no doubt, and his will be a carefully played hand.

• Buccus is a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at UKZN and academic director of a university study-abroad programme on political transformation. He is also a senior research associate at ASRI, the Auwal Socio-economic Research Institute