In 1997 former president Nelson Mandela told the ANC party conference that “something was wrong” in the ANC, that it was attracting people who were “un-ANC”, people who did not embrace the party’s values but saw membership as a stepping stone to government posts and a place at the trough. Thabo Mbeki said: “That message has been repeated at all conferences since but nothing has ever been done to get rid of those who enter the ANC without carrying its values.”

Source: Financial Mail

As we approach the anniversary of the third decade of democracy next year, the ANC’s election messaging remains the same as it was when we marked the second decade in 2014. 

Ten years later the “good story to tell” narrative is back, flooding social and mainstream media over the weekend as President Cyril Ramaphosa headlined the party’s manifesto “review” process. Without a hint of irony, he echoed former president Jacob Zuma’s messaging ahead of the 2014 election, saying the ANC should be judged on the entirety of its achievements  since 1994, and not just on whether it had fulfilled the promises in its 2019 manifesto — which it generally has not.

The difficulty the ANC faces is its own recalcitrance in reforming itself. It takes human capital to implement a manifesto, and it’s doubtful that  the ANC has the calibre of people in its ranks to extricate South Africa from the morass.

Behind the scenes, as the manifesto review unfolds, a more crucial process is taking place in ANC branches and structures — the selection of those who will represent the party in national and provincial legislatures, otherwise known as  the “list process”.

This is of paramount importance for the party (and the country); these will be MPLs and MECs at provincial level and MPs and cabinet ministers at national level.  In 2020 the ANC established an electoral committee, chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, which is supposed “to assist the ANC put forward the best and most credible candidates for elections”.But the list process is still driven by the party’s members, and despite the noise about reform and renewal, little appears to have changed.

Yes, corruption-accused Ace Magashule has been kicked out.  But among the audience at an engagement with journalists on Saturday was one Faith Muthambi, an ANC parliamentarian who will very likely make it back onto the list despite evidence that she leaked classified cabinet documents to the Guptas at the height of state capture. It’s a stark reminder that the rot in the party still festers  beneath the “renewal” veneer.

There are dozens of similar examples at national level and the toxin extends down to local branch level, crippling the administration of municipalities. Former president Thabo Mbeki drove home the point in an interaction with Unisa students two weeks ago.

“I say to the ANC comrades, that ‘Wena [you], you say that I must go campaigning next year to say people must vote ANC. How am I going to say vote for the ANC when I know very well that the branch of the ANC in this constituency is led by a criminal?’

“You can’t,” Mbeki said. “It’s not possible to say vote ANC for a criminal. That renewal process is very important.”

He told students, in response to a question, that in 1997 former president Nelson Mandela told the party conference that “something was wrong” in the ANC, that it was attracting people who were “un-ANC”, people who did not embrace the party’s values but saw membership as a stepping stone to government posts and a place at the trough.

“That message has been repeated at all conferences since but nothing has ever been done to get rid of those who enter the ANC without carrying its values,” he said.

He recounted how, at  an ANC gathering in KwaZulu-Natal in 2020, he had spoken  about these values and an audience member stood up to say he knew nothing about them; he had been recruited to be a “member of a faction” and this was the ANC as he knew it.

The 2017 and 2022 ANC conferences took decisions on renewal but  nothing had been done, Mbeki said. The “obvious challenge” the ANC was facing was that those who feared renewal would jeopardise their positions simply protected their own interests by blocking it.

“Even the governing party itself has people … who will resist its renewal and perpetuate this reality that you have people in the ANC who are greedy, who are thieves, who are corrupt … That’s the reality we have to deal with.”

Mbeki’s stinging critique did not go unnoticed by the ANC’s national executive committee. It is understood that there were calls within the NEC for the former president to be “reined in”. Yet Mbeki hit the nail on the head — there can be no improvement in state capacity, no corruption clean-up and no delivery on manifesto promises unless the party finds a better class of  leaders to represent it in the government and in legislatures.

In the end, the ANC has nothing to crow about beyond the accomplishments of its first decade in power, before it was captured by those intent on destruction and looting.

While its list process has been tightened, the people chosen will be no better or worse than the members of the branches — and there has been little or no improvement at that level since Zuma and his “good story to tell” refrain back in 2014.