What does a Cyril Ramaphosa presidency have to offer the ANC? What, for that matter, does a Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma leadership have to offer the oldest liberation movement on the African continent? We don't know the answers to these questions, and we are unlikely to know them until one of these leaders is in power. Then the big surprise will hit us.We didn't know what Jacob Zuma had to offer the ANC when he went up against Thabo Mbeki at the Polokwane conference in 2007, other than that he led a grouping of men and women who would have moved heaven and earth to remove Mbeki from the Union Buildings.Would Ramaphosa bring about a more business-friendly ANC? As opposed to what kind of ANC exactly? After all, Dlamini-Zuma served under Mbeki and that presidency gave us the Gear policy. That policy was derided by trade unions and the Zuma-ites. Seven years after the Mbeki era, however, economic policy is still pretty much what it was then - so what was the Zuma presidency all about?Visiting the UK this week has been a delight. The ANC's old comrade and ally, the Labour Party, is in the throes of a leadership battle. Four candidates have thrown their hat in the ring: Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall.Corbyn, a doughty leftwinger, is the clear frontrunner. No one expected him to be, and the so-called "New Labour" leaders of the 1990s and 2000s are falling all over themselves to say that he is not the right man for the job because of his left-leaning views. Former prime minister Tony Blair and a plethora of others - from Neil Kinnock, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown to David Miliband - have warned Labour supporters that voting for Corbyn will harm the party.Cooper, one of the contenders, has claimed that Corbyn's policies are not credible and accused him of offering "old solutions to old problems". She has said Corbyn is proposing economic policies that could increase inflation, cut investment and undermine growth.Corbyn, right from the beginning of his campaign, has made it clear that he wants radical thinking on the economy and issues such as welfare and austerity. He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "We think the Left members of the party need to have a chance of a debate. People were disillusioned with what we were offering."He has always been on the hard Left of the Labour Party and campaigned strongly against apartheid in South Africa and the oppression of other people around the globe. His views are very clear and he has held them for decades. He has not bent with the wind. Labour voters know exactly what they will get with him at the helm.Corbyn is garnering so much support that Cooper and Burnham are now involved in a nasty race to, at least, be able to secure second place and perhaps a run-off battle against Corbyn.One of Burnham's campaign leaders told The Guardian newspaper: "The stakes are desperately high, with the future electability of the Labour Party now in mortal danger . It's time now to rally behind the only person in this contest who can beat Jeremy Corbyn and that is very clearly Andy Burnham."It is all very exciting and transparent and has Labour voters engaged with their party. In South Africa, we saw a glimpse of this sort of campaigning when Mmusi Maimane went head-to-head with DA federal chairman Wilmot James for the leadership of the party in May.The ANC will win the 2019 election. So imagine how great it would be if ANC members could have an open, transparent process such as the ones we are seeing in many enlightened societies across the globe where potential party leaders actually put themselves out there and ask for their comrades to judge them on their commitment to certain goals and ideas.Alas, if Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma so much as dares express an independent view they will be accused of being "un-ANC" and told that the "movement's culture and traditions don't allow for such actions". Is the culture of the ANC cast in stone? Is there no forward movement?The truth is that there is a presidential campaign under way in the ANC. Suddenly people who haven't displayed a bone of feminism in their entire lives are calling for a woman president as if their lives depended on it.On social media Ramaphosa is being besmirched, accused of being a "lackey to big business".But the debate is in the shadows, is corrupted by money and is far removed from the rump of the ANC membership.It is time for the party to modernise, to step out of the shadows and into the light. A clandestine approach was necessary in exile and under apartheid. They are anachronistic now. They also serve those who prosper from conspiracies and in the darkness...