Moving at dazzling speed, the ANC has taken only 28 years to decide that members who have been criminally charged and forced to step aside will not be allowed to apply for a better job in the party.
Given the pace and radical nature of these reforms, insiders now believe that Cyril Ramaphosa may be less than a decade away from suggesting that the divine right of kings might have to start being questioned.
Some are even speculating that it may be no more than 100 years until the ANC starts discussing whether municipal managers should be able to do grade three maths or appoint qualified professionals rather than their idiot nephew.
In 200 years, we could start seeing the party demand that teachers have a basic grasp of the subjects they’re teaching.
And, should this runaway train of reform continue on its current trajectory, it could be just 500 years until the ANC announces that energy grids need to be maintained rather than left to the magic electricity fairies.
Fortunately for many ANC traditionalists, who now fear that the party is leaving safe, sensible medievalism and careening towards a nightmarish Renaissance in which leaders are expected to know things and do things to justify their immense salaries, there is an obvious reprieve: you first have to “voluntarily” step aside before any of the prohibitions apply to you.
The ANC knows that if getting charged for a crime is a hindrance to high office, its NEC will soon consist of three nuns who wandered into Luthuli House looking for directions and one 11-year-old doing a school project on Oliver Tambo.
To you and me, who live in a world in which our careers end the moment we’re charged with a major crime, stepping aside sounds like a mere formality, a shameful little footnote tagged onto a scandal.
In the top echelons of the ANC, however, getting charged is simply proof that you’re doing right by your faction of the cartel. If you’re not getting charged, it better be because you’re making evidence disappear. Otherwise, you need to take a long, hard look at your commitment to the party and its fundamental principle of personal profit at all costs.
In short, the ANC knows that if getting charged for a crime is a hindrance to high office, its NEC will soon consist of three nuns who wandered into Luthuli House looking for directions and one 11-year-old doing a school project on Oliver Tambo.
Which is why it’s added that important qualifier that being charged isn’t enough to prevent you from seeking high office. No, you need to have been charged and then “voluntarily” stepped aside. And that’s the ballgame right there.
Because, of course, the step aside rule can’t be enforced by the courts. And secondly, and much more importantly, it relies on the accused to act with professionalism, dignity and contrition, which automatically excludes pretty much everyone in the NEC.
In other words, if you’ve been charged with a crime but you’ve refused to step aside — perhaps because you believe the charges are a political hatchet job — then, as I understand this ruling, you are still free to contest internal elections.
In fairness, the new edict is faintly positive, at least in theory. At the very least, it seems to be an admission by the ANC that promoting criminals might not be the best way to win votes.
But the gap between theory and practice is wide, and haunted by career hustlers with large numbers of lawyers and no scruples whatsoever.
There is a small, optimistic part of me that wants to quote Ramaphosa by urging you to watch this space. But the rest of me — the part that’s been watching this space for decades — just isn’t sure any of us have the time any more.
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