JUSTICE MALALA | The ANC has no solutions: let voters show them what unity is

We all know the ANC is broken. We can all see the organisation is taking the country down the cliff with it. What we don’t have, from many of those who speak of the ANC’s fall from grace, however, are the answers to the urgent question: how can we avoid the disaster, for SA, that lies ahead?

This past week was former president Thabo Mbeki’s turn to say what many analysts have been saying for years. Speaking at the memorial service of ANC leader Jessie Duarte, Mbeki warned that we would have our own version of the so-called Arab Spring unless issues of poverty, unemployment and corruption were addressed.

“You can’t have so many people unemployed, so many people poor,” he said. “One day it’s going to explode.”

He pointed to the lack of urgency in the party to do anything about these challenges, citing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promise at the state of the nation address in February, that he would unveil a comprehensive social compact to boost economic growth within 100 days.

“Nothing has happened, nothing,” Mbeki said.

So what is the solution? How do we get out of this mess? Four and a half years ago Ramaphosa promised renewal of the ANC — and the country. He pledged to deal decisively with his corrupt comrades. To show just how renewed the ANC is, this week his comrades in KwaZulu-Natal were putting forward a former mayor accused of murder and convicted for fraud, as the party’s potential treasurer-general. Reports of corruption and even murder by the party’s local, provincial and national leaders dominate the news daily.

This corruption takes place while the ANC’s leaders ignore the cries of a nation suffering under unprecedented increases in the prices of fuel, food, transport and other basic necessities. With an unemployment rate of 34.5% — the worst of 82 economies monitored by Bloomberg — and the highest inequality in the world, this country should be in a state of economic emergency.

It should be important for the ANC to try to and keep united and the leadership of the ANC should do everything to try to keep ANC united.

—  Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

This we all know. What is the solution? If you were to ask the likes of Thabo Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe, Jacob Zuma and others in the ANC, you would realise they think South Africans are idiots. In his speech at the Duarte memorial, Mbeki reportedly “reiterated his confidence in the ANC as the leader of society”, saying there is “hope for the governing party”.

Mbeki continued: “Most ANC members are not corrupt and are concerned about the state of the ANC. Let’s do all these things that would mean a better life for the people.”

This is the heart of the problem. This is why the solution to SA’s problems will not come from the ANC. Even the more upstanding of the ANC’s leaders cannot recognise that the ANC is no longer the “leader of society”, unless by that you mean SA wants to be led by thieves and dissemblers.

ANC leaders do not have the ability to lift SA out of its problems because, first, they erroneously believe the only way to do so is through the ANC and, second, that this will happen through the “unity of the movement”. Ramaphosa has for the past five years tried to unify the ANC, but what was he unifying? The non-corrupt with the corrupt, the thieves with the crime-fighters — that is oil and water. It has not mixed at all.

The party has a long history of attempts to unify its looters with its “credible” wing. Take Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who stood with Mbeki against the ascendancy of Jacob Zuma in 2007. Zuma was correctly branded as corrupt by the Mbeki slate. In 2008, when many of her comrades, from Mbhazima Shilowa to Terror Lekota, were warning about the looming disaster of a Zuma presidency, she said: “It should be important for the ANC to try to keep united and the leadership of the ANC should do everything to try and keep ANC united.”

That unity brought on the state capture years when billions were stolen. Over the past four years Ramaphosa has prattled on about unity of the ANC, putting it ahead of the survival of the SA state. ANC leaders love the ANC more than they will ever love SA.

The solution that Mbeki, Ramaphosa, Dlamini-Zuma and every single ANC leader is avoiding is this: the ANC should be abandoned by all right-thinking South Africans. Not because they hate it but because it has failed. It has failed because its leaders, from Mbeki to Ramaphosa, have put “unity” of the ANC ahead of prosperity and unity of the country. By doing this, they have showed they have no answers, no solutions, to the urgent problems of our times. They can continue to unite with thieves, but South Africans should also take some action. They should vote for the opposition in huge numbers in 2024, otherwise it will be too late.