The Mbalula press conference and the future of Sanco

This is the original article by MZWANELE MAYEKISO, a shortened version of which appeared in the Sunday Times print edition on July 9

… Mbalula has a right to host meetings and press conferences with any and everybody, on the basis of assessing the objective conditions that may work for his political program and interests... 

Dear Comrades 

I realise that the announcement by the Secretary General of the ANC, Cde. Fikile Mbalula, for a press conference [or was it?] that excluded the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) national interim civic committee (NICC) as led by the founders caused a lot of confusion, disaffection and consternation among our ranks. 

This was the case because civic leaders and activists were regularly informed of the cogent and professional relationship that the SANCO NICC process developed with the ANC, to the extent that we had three critical meetings with Cde. Mbalula in short order. 

So, the shock and dismay could be understood, in the context of the SANCO veterans’s meeting at Luthuli house on the 27th July, at the invitation of Cde. Mbalula: and, then suddenly and without any notice to us, hasty announcements were made in the public domain through ANC posters promoting a joint press conference between the SGO and the individuals who carry no mandate from the masses of our people. 

We listened to many people, leaders and activists committed to the unity initiative, lamenting the development as being unfair and accusations flew about that Cde. Mbalula was perhaps compromising the SGO with these impromptu developments that seemed to 

legitimise individuals who are running away from democratic accountability, attaching along with them [to these careless jaunts] the brand of the People’s Organs of Power (POPs), Sanco. 

Our task as leadership is to ensure that those who look up to us for direction are not disappointed when the hour to show our mettle comes. 

We failed to rise to the occasion, perhaps because we too were paralysed by the developments, and had no explanation to provide to society and it felt more like a stab in the back by a process that we thought was trustworthy, genuine and meaningful to the unity of Sanco. It became too much to bear for comrades when ANC posters were circulated on social media about a purported election partnership that was to be announced between these individuals and the ANC. 

What wasn’t too clear to many of us was the terms of reference for such a partnership, because if the individuals concerned were indeed civic leaders, they would have canvassed their support base to develop a set of minimum demands that could form the basis of an electoral partnership. It is not clear as to whether the press conference indeed happened, because it is in the news that we would understand the terms of reference for such an electoral pact. A joint press conference to pronounce on an electoral pact, without any development benefits that would accrue to the community, is typical of a group of people whose political expediency propelled them into that type of a commitment without any accountability to the base, simply because it doesn’t exists; but the need to benefit from the patronage system that follows a partnership arrangement is too much to pass up on– after all that is the reason Sanco’s democratic processes were run to the ground, just so that individuals could use its brand for personal benefit. 

The obvious question that some of us asked, was where would these individuals get the support to bring to an ANC electoral platform, and a time when the movement required a complete and absolute majority in the upcoming national elections; when these individuals couldn’t even manage to pull together their Office Bearers and National Executive Committees to receive a mandate for the so-called disbandment of their factions– which never happened because no such sessions took, it was only the figment of two individuals’s imaginations to hold on to the Sanco brand at whatever cost to the community, just for personal benefit. 

The other question that preoccupied the mind, was whether this uncharacteristic recognition of the individuals, was on the basis of belonging to a powerful faction among the many that ravage our glorious movement: such that they managed to concoct and manufacture believable lies about the intentions of registering Sanco with the IEC; or could there have been other more profound tales/make belief stories that were conjured up for the benefit of the hapless ANC NWC? 

The challenge of any leader is the ability to offer solutions to unclear developments, eloquent explanation of opaque phenomena, and in so doing standing up to scrutiny, and standing our ground when it comes to telling the truth even if it might be painful: when it involves the rebuilding of the broken fibre of the [the South African Society] civic movement which took so long and so much sacrifice to nurture, and develop. 

There was a lot of waffling today by the leadership of the civic movement instead of responding to the developments and offering solutions and assurances– standing up to the scrutiny of being a leader. I, myself, conspired in the waffling by hiding behind a fig leaf; when the issues of leadership were glaring at my face, and many comrades cajoled me to 

respond as national [organiser] facilitator, or at the least to provide direction in the confusion that reigned. 

I wish to speak to the Mbalula “Sanco” meeting or “press conference” that supposedly took place today so that there’s more clarity, hopefully; but also for comrades to understand that as we build the civic movement, there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty and perhaps loathing because things turn out not as we expected at times. 

Through this narrative, I am emphaising that the work that has been done thus far is of serious quality, it only requires us to believe in ourselves and ourselves only, because communities will not be developed if we fold when we are at the threshold of victory. 

The Founding of the NICC 

When the Sanco NICC was founded on the 25th March, it was to ensure that the three Sanco Factions were united under the leadership of the founders; and the progress that we have achieved is phenomenal in just three months of our existence. We succeeded in this regard, although it is work in progress, as the three known Sanco factions are part of the Sanco NICC Unity Initiative. 

We, in fact, succeeded where others failed after valiant attempts to bring unity to this revolutionary midwife, the civic movement which was destroyed by an egocentric culture that enveloped Sanco for the past seven years, perhaps more. 

If one were to ask what has been achieved thus far in the unity process when the civic movement was tied into knots today by events that we couldn’t explain and offer direction when the membership sought assurance from us; in the face of psychological crisis caused by the recognition of undemocratic personalities through a ‘press conference by our movement; when real democrats, community builders were being trivialised to the benefit of factional politics. 

Well, the fact that in the three months time of the existence of the Sanco NICC as led by the founders, the ground upon which they walked started to burn from under the feet of the pretenders; they could no longer bury their heads under the sand, because our work suffocated them, they had to bury the hatchet by quashing the court case because we told them that Sanco matters are political in nature and that they could not be resolved through technical arguments, when the time required the revival of organisational culture. 

Two, they had to meld their two factions into one to provide strength to each other in the face of the combined political experience, honour and wisdom that they confronted from the founders, because lies and subterfuge had no place to hide. They also had to plagiarise our acronym, the NICC because they were advised to do so in order to create sufficient confusion in society that there were two NICCs that had to be collapsed to create one interim structure. They also mimicked our provincial structures as part of this strategic advice from the faceless individuals, and they seemed to be a step ahead of us as they launched the provincial structures a day or two ahead of us. 

However, the truth as told above is that there was no collapse of the two factions, because they were already decimated as their Office Bearers left to join the Sanco NICC process led by the founders, the regions moved away from them to join the revival process. So, the individuals had to appoint each other President, and Secretary just to hold on to the titles, which is the reason they resisted our call for unity while their colleagues heeded the message of the founders. 

This is indeed an achievement, if individuals previously at war with each other, see the value of unity in the face of a common threat, which in this case is democracy, had become their mortal enemy as they would rather stay as president and secretary for eternity without accounting to anybody. 

We must therefore not allow anyone to confuse us when it comes to the strategic nature of the work that has been done towards the renewal and rebuilding, not only of Sanco, but the entire Liberation Movement. 

Indeed, we must highlight that the Sanco NICC as led by the founders has managed to unite the various factions, though the holdouts remain and our organisational approach is that the concept of unity is not an event but a process that should be allowed time to mature in order to succeed. 

Presidential Briefings 

We met with former Presidents, comrades Thabo Mbeki, and Jacob Zuma and they both endorsed our work to unify the civics, but from different political perspectives. 

Prez. Zuma supported the potential for [possibility of] SANCO standing for elections in 2024; while Prez. Mbeki suggested that Sanco's place in civil society should be retained– as an active agent for social change and transformation. 

We had great conversations with the former presidents and we will keep going back to them to gain experience from their knowledge as they both committed to meet with us as frequently as possible to receive updates and make suggestions along the way. 

Bilateral Meetings 

The first of the bilateral sessions was with the ANC, and we met with the Secretary General of congress, Cde. Mbalula with whom we had three meetings in a short space of time. All the sessions were very fruitful and we received endorsement from him on our quest to unite the civics under the leadership of the founders. 

Sanco and Elections 

In the third meeting, Cde. Mbalula raised the issue of Sanco having registered as a political party, that the NWC was concerned about this development; suggesting that when the organisation was rebuilding itself, it didn’t make sense to be thinking about elections. Our response was in two parts. 

1. Protecting the name of Sanco 

We explained to Mbalula that Sanco was registered to protect its name from unscrupulous individuals who wished to register the name to fight factional battles in the ANC. In fact, Cde. Thozamile Botha, the Sanco National Secretary briefed Cde. Mbalula in the second meeting that we held. Cde. Mbalula explained his difficulty with the new developments in which the component structures were now thought of standing for elections, using the example of the SACP which was talking of a reconfigured alliance in which all actors were considered equal. The SACP had already registered with the IEC so that it could stand as and when its membership had decided to contest state power. So, the registration of Sanco was not different from that of the SACP in this sense. 

2. Sanco and Elections 

We further explained to Cde. Mbalula that the decision as to whether Sanco could/should stand for elections or not belonged to the owners of the organisation, its members who would decide at a special national conference on whether they thought it prudent for the civic movement to be in government: or that Sanco continued with its traditional role as leader of civil society. This discussion would form part of the broad conversation to renew Sanco by rethinking everything about its history including the structure of the organisation. In this regard, nothing was sacrosanct as the renewal of the organisation belonged to members alone. It was critical to note that the membership of Sanco had sufficient intellectual capacity to make strategic decisions that are in keeping with the interests of the community. 

Coalition Governments and Democracy 

Our argument was that the only reason that Sanco members would have reason to stand was only if the ANC was threatened with defeat in the 2024 national elections and beyond, coercing it into coalition arrangements with smaller parties. The experience of local government in which the local state is controlled by minority parties that carry one seat in the assemblies, was sufficient to warrant Sanco to think about elections only as a stopgap to protect the liberation movement from annihilation. The chaos at local government level would completely collapse the country if it were repeated at the national level, in the case of an ANC that failed to reach the 50+1% threshold. The ANC would have to partner [depending on the political impulse at the time] with either the Democratic Alliance (DA) if the president were Cde. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa; or, perhaps the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) -- this is least according to newspapers and some talking heads. Both these options are problematic, unless the ANC could reach an absolute majority at the polls to forge a government by itself. 

Mbalula Statement at the ANCYL Conference 

It was surprising to notice that Cde. Mbalula raised the issue of Sanco having registered with the IEC as a problem at the youth conference, even after we took time to explain to him as indicated above; without equally lamenting the SACP which registered many years ago, without standing until a few years back when it contested for local government seats in Sasolburg. He might have forgotten his earlier statement that the authority of the ANC was limited when it came to Sanco because it was not a desk of the ANC, though it might have been an appendage to factional politics for a while. 

Mbalula and “SANCO” Press Conference 

Cde. Mbalula followed his statement at the ANCYL by lambasting Sanco, for turning Sanco into a political Party with a post conference press briefing yesterday, where he announced his intention to host another press conference the following day [today] with “Sanco” which according to him had integrated after collapsing the two factional structures. In other words, the ANC NWC took a decision to embrace Cdes. Mike Soko and Richard Hlophe on the basis that they had now united by forming a National Interim Coordinating Committee (NICC). According to Mbalula and the ANC NWC, Richard Hlophe and Mike Soko represented the entirety of the civic movement and had the organisational capacity to pull the civics towards voting for the ANC in 2024. 

The Independence of Sanco from Political Parties 

At the meeting of the 27th June, Cde. Mbalula explained that it was difficult for his office to coerce Sanco leaders into the unity process because the civic movement was independent of the ANC; and the relationship was at an alliance level. The status of Sanco was different from that of the ANCYL or ANCWL and other component structures of the movement, because it could instruct them to unite because the ANC was the mother body. 

Cde. Mbalula was very correct in this analysis, because the unity of Sanco can only be forged by Sanco members and leaders; which is why Mbalula has a right to host meetings and/or press conferences with any and everybody, on the basis of assessing the objective conditions that may work for his political program and interests because it is upon the strategic decisions that help to build or break the ANC that he will be judged at the next national conference. This conversation affirmed the long held view in the civic movement that civil society organisations should be proud of their independence, cherish it, and jealously guarding the value system, the norms that define the essence of civic culture. 

Political parties, including the ANC, should strive to win Sanco and other social formations over to their side of thinking not on the basis of loyalty, but on the grounds of an electoral platform that speaks the language of community development, delivery of services, job creation, security and comfort, etc. The value of Sanco to communities is and shouldn’t be that of prostrating the organisation at the feet of political entities, when these interests should explain to civic movement as to why they may be beneficial to the development of liveable communities should they be elected. 

Constitution 

The other issue of importance that has been raised both in the meetings with Cde. Mbalula and within the Sanco NICC Unity Initiative, has been the constitution of Sanco. I thought I would dwell a bit on it as well, because Cde. Mbalula indicated his interest in reading and familiarising himself with the SANCO constitution because everybody that he met talked about its centrality to the life of Sanco. 

Constitutions are by their nature critical to the authority of any organisation, and Sanco is no different. People suggest that we don't support or recognise the constitution of Sanco, yet the formulation of the National Interim Civics Committee [NICC], was and is anchored on the precepts of Sanco's 2014 constitution [endorsed in 2015]--since the 25th March 2023, as it when it was originally set up to coordinate the formation of Sanco in 1992. 

We agree with the sentiment [as a fact] that the 2014 constitution signed in 2015 is the only legally binding document upon which our work is and should be premised: while acknowledging the egregious violation of its intentions when illegitimate conferences both in Alexandra and Durban in 2019 took place leading us to the present political moras. 

Indeed, what is in fact complete fiction is the narrative that those who emerged from these illegal conferences follow the Sanco constitution to the latter when they are as illegitimate to challenge the great work of the NICC led by the founders to unite the civics even to the extent of duplicating its acronym. 

The Sanco NICC process is the only one that is empowered by history and experience to unite the three factions, it is progressing well and unimpeded in its trajectory as exemplified by the recent launch of the GP PICC this last Sunday; and the remaining four provinces will follow suit within the month of July, to complete the process towards a democratic national conference which will/ should elect a servant leadership, not an illegitimate aristocracy that imposes itself on the will of our people by hijacking the brand name of Sanco. 

It is also the unification and rebuilding of Sanco that will give proper impetus to the renewal of the liberation movement, because the process is transparent, altruistic and more reminiscent of the values upon which the Liberation Movement was founded. 

The spirit at the GP PICC launch was festive, full of promise for the future and almost revolutionary as is the period within which we are reviving Sanco – it is pregnant with new possibilities as our democratic experiment is reaching the 30 year cycle in which social organisations experience further growth or decline. Sociologists describe the cycle as one of self introspection by social movements, so that they either go boom or bust on the basis of renewal or stagnation. By social movements l mean [and embrace] its broad category which includes liberation organisations and/or political parties. 

This is a period that confronts the ANC, SACP, COSATU and Sanco included, such that anyone of these entities that fails to apply scientific methods of organisational building and ren.ewal will be cast into the dustbin of history 

All the formations of the liberation movement are going through that stage, which is that of rethinking the strategic objectives of their existence, as to whether they still bring value to society based on the experiences of past years considering the challenges of the future. 

Sanco is renewing itself because it still has its founders, who are its strategic assets and they will ensure that the civic movement is revived to play a critical role in the development and transformation of South Africa. 

In conclusion, it is clear that Sanco will only be unified by its members, founders and veterans so that it takes its historic role of fighting for the betterment of living conditions in our communities. Even these founders must show serious commitment to the process in order to assist society to benefit from the organisation they founded, they will not be helpful if they become part of the obfuscation [speaking with forked tongues, confusing the cadreship of Sanco that is ready for the unity of purpose and action] that characterises the current period as exemplified by the day’s developments in the political space. In that regard, the task of unifying the civic movement is more urgent than before, because the future development of South Africa depends upon a unified Sanco which takes its cue from the community members through the five yearly conferences that are enshrined in the constitution. 

Indeed, ...the unity of Sanco cannot be delayed any longer...! 

* Mayekiso is national organiser and facilitator of Sanco’s NICC