EDITORIAL | The choice is Ace’s. Will he choose the frying pan or the fire?

The saying “when days are dark, friends are few” must be ringing in Ace Magashule’s head after his suspension as secretary-general of the ANC, which was followed by an order to apologise or face consequences.

The ruling party is, of course, in uncharted waters and it is evidently trying to traverse its challenges with discernible circumspection — what with local government elections around the corner. Magashule too must be having endless internal conversations about the latest turn of events, including how he seems to cut a lonely figure at this critical time in his political life.

After the recent ANC NEC meeting, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced: “The NEC also discussed the so-called letter of suspension written by the secretary-general to the president, for which the secretary-general had no authority or mandate from any structure of the movement. The NEC agreed that such conduct was completely unacceptable and a flagrant violation of the rules, the norms and the values of the ANC.”

Effectively, Magashule was behaving in an un-ANC manner. The party said he must apologise publicly to ANC structures for bringing it into disrepute or face censure. 

While the ANC is facing unprecedented challenges, so too is Magashule. Apologising will mean he accepts defeat for not only misreading the balance of forces within the ANC, but disregarding its rules and regulations. If he couldn’t politically read the ANC and fight fairly within the rules, as the chief admin officer of the party, how then is he reading the country’s political mood ahead of local elections, much less the geopolitics of Sub-Saharan Africa?

If he remains obstinate and refuses to apologise, his ANC membership could be suspended until, say, after the next ANC elective conference, ruling him out of contestation for future positions. Fighting Ramaphosa from outside the ANC will certainly be an exercise in futility, especially now that he sees how few friends he has in the party’s leadership structures. He is very firmly between a rock and a hard place.

The muted response to his suspension tells a terrible story of a secretary out in the cold, supported only by a motley crew of picketers from Mangaung.

Ordinarily, ANC leaders who occupy the secretary-general position have, in history, enjoyed popular support within structures of the party, particularly its women, youth and labour formations. Not Magashule, it seems.

The muted response to his suspension tells a terrible story of a secretary out in the cold, supported only by a motley crew of picketers from Mangaung. Cosatu, the SACP and sections of a moribund ANC Youth League (ANCYL) have welcomed his suspension. While not much has come out of the interim leadership of the ANCYL, it has not expressed support for Magashule.

The ANC Women’s League’s (ANCWL) decision not to throw its weight behind him days after his suspension, but ahead of the crucial NEC meeting last weekend, must have elicited an Et tu, Brute?-type of reaction from the embattled Magashule.

The ANCWL said it “chooses the ANC above all divisions in the movement. We refuse to be drawn in the differences of ANC men who don’t care about the future of the liberation movement. With the suspension imposed on him, we appeal to him as women to consider humbling himself while organisational processes unfold. We know that it is difficult, but we plead with him to rise above and not conduct himself in ways that further weaken the already struggling ANC.”

Put differently, the ANC’s women were effectively saying they don’t think he is an exemplar of how ANC cadres should conduct themselves in public, more so at a time when the ANC brand is haemorrhaging ahead of crucial local government elections. His behaviour communicates a troubling oblivion to the many ANC afflictions. Even if they might have differences with Ramaphosa, Magashule is not the sort of a leader they would bring themselves to support. It is high-noon rejection that must hurt. After all, this is the same structure that supported then ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma at a time he faced not only corruption, but rape charges in the period leading to the historic 2007 ANC conference in Polokwane. 

If women could support a rape suspect, but not him, the obvious question is what is so fundamentally wrong with Magashule?

The rejection is also, in a way, an indictment on the ruling party that one who was meant to epitomise the ANC’s excellence, one who, as secretary-general, must drive organisational renewal and growth, has turned out to be an embarrassment worthy of rejection by the women, youth, workers and communists. 

On the surface, it seems, Magashule is on the ropes. Asking him to apologise is a test of his understanding of tactics. Choosing not to apologise might be akin to flying from a hotplate into the fire, as it were. He has been given a choice that is, in fact, not a choice.