EUSEBIUS MCKAISER | Heard the one about the ANC promising 'organisational renewal'?

The African National Congress will turn us all into jaded cynics if we aren't careful. The sooner we recognise that the ANC isn't entitled to constitutional power but must earn it, the better our chances are of avoiding becoming jaded, cynical and disengaged.

The starting point is to reject the joke (badly masked as a policy proposal) about the ANC renewing itself in our lifetime. It's never going to happen. Rejecting this lie will unlock our creativity, so that we can begin the exercise of seriously imagining and mapping out a post-ANC political reality.

I myself had to avoid becoming disengaged and jaded while working through and thinking about the ANC's policy proposals that will, in theory anyway, be debated by delegates who travelled from around the country, to Johannesburg for the weekend.

The problem is that I am now old enough to have attended one ANC conference too many, and institutional memory makes it impossible to simply read ANC discussion documents without evaluating past behaviour, including previous policy and elective conferences.

Once you step back from a singular event, however, you have an analytical duty to be honest with the public about what the data tells us over a period of time, beyond the big event of the week. This is where cynicism about the ANC becomes reasonable. They make the same promises, year in and year out, with little sign of improvement in the material outcomes for both the party, and the society within which the party is in government. If anything, the ANC is drunk on entitlement, and not ashamed about failure.

Take this statement near the beginning of the policy documents, “The ANC remains the biggest party in many councils where it is not governing. However, the bitter reality is that it has been kept out of government by the growing phenomenon of small opposition parties ganging up to keep the ANC out of office. These coalitions, which have less in common than a crowd of drunkards in a beer hall, are on a crusade to obliterate the defining goals of our national transformation project. Otherwise, they would not all declare the demise of the ANC as the only primary reason they exist. Their self-realisation in the palaces they now occupy under the pretext of fighting corruption, has more to do with their careerism, wheeling and dealing and patronage. We must work hard to unmask this truth to the people. The defence and consolidation of our democratic gains starts with organisational integrity and winning the battle of ideas.”

It's extraordinary for multiple reasons.

First, the silly beer hall analogy is not mere writing fluff, but sounds like whoever wrote this was perhaps literally having one too many in a beer hall themselves.

Second, it shows disdain for our electoral politics by condescending to other political parties, as if we do not have a multiparty electoral system in which every entity competes for every available vote.

Third, and most objectionably, it treats voters as idiots who were simply hoodwinked by other parties rather than rationally opting out of voting for the ANC.

You should never fall for the ANC admitting to some of its weaknesses. They trick you into thinking they can self-examine but then do none of the hard work that shows the self-examination to have been sincere

Finally, it is premised on a dangerous belief that the ANC has a natural right to be in charge of the state, which is why it cannot conceive of legitimately losing out in the battle for votes.

This is evidence of a party that is so far gone in the erosion of its core historical values and mission that “organisational renewal” is something it is not likely to achieve in our lifetime.

You should never fall for the ANC admitting to some of its weaknesses. They [members] trick you into thinking they can self-examine but then do none of the hard work that shows the self-examination to have been sincere. I have seen this ANC plot often as an analyst. 

And so it isn't surprising to me that the discussion on organisational renewal starts with an insincere admission that the party is facing an existential crisis.

More specifically, the following self-diagnosis, which you can find in many previous ANC documents, with only slight changes in language, is vintage ANC: “Problem statement 1: A distant inward looking ANC unable to be agents of change and connect with communities, the motive forces, and sectors of society, out of touch with our constituency, and not schooled in the values and goals of the ANC. Leaders and members who lack basic  leadership, organising and communication skills, and are unable to motivate and mobilise activists, civil society, supporters and voters. This is reflected in the ANC's declining electoral support, including the loss of a majority in five out of eight metros. This also includes the re-emergence of careerism, previously noted in the 1997 ANC 50th national conference by then president, comrade Nelson Mandela, with ANC membership seen as a means to advance personal ambitions to attain positions of power and access to resources for their won individual gratification.”

It then adds a second problem statement: “Problem statement 2: An ANC that is increasingly losing credibility and trust from the people because of its performance in delivering a better life for all, corruption, and state capture, and because we are not seen to be 'managing state resources for the benefit of our people, effectively, efficiently and economically'. We undertook to build a developmental state as a major instrument of transformation, and yet our people no longer believe that we have 'good plans to create jobs and change the economy'.”

Here's the blunt truth. The ANC has failed since 1985, at least, to develop a kind of cadre who could be trusted with the architecture of a democratic state one day. That year was declared “The Year of the Cadre”. It was meant to be accompanied by a programme of action instilling ethical values in cadres; values such as integrity and servant leadership.

Fast forward to, say, Mangaung 2012, and again the party — now firmly in the governance driving seat — adopted a “Decade of Renewal” resolution.

It is exactly a decade later now, and the pipeline of cadre leadership is empty, which is why government at all three levels remains dismal.

The discussion document proposes that a portion of this weekend be devoted to revisiting old issues such as the “vision” of renewal, political leadership, eliminating corruption, rethinking the requirements to be seconded to the state beyond just being a member in good standing, and so on But this is all nonsense. It was grappled with before democracy. It was grappled with at every conference since democracy's dawn.

The ANC has simply become, as part of its organisational culture, an outfit that attracts, enables and even affirms members and “leaders” who lack integrity, who are often not skilled for the technocratic roles they are given, who often have little to no regard for the principle of constitutional supremacy, and who couldn't define ethical and servant leadership, let alone exhibit it, even if their lives depended on it.

Organisational renewal is a pipe dream. Too many ANC cadres are driven by careerism, greed and a brute determination to steal goods that belong to the public. The highest leadership structures of the ANC are too implicated in the ANC's fall from democratic grace to be in a position to reverse the trend.

The ANC will be remembered for an important role it played in helping to dismantle the apartheid regime. It will be remembered less favourably for how it handled freedom the morning after the Nats were toppled.