Dugan Brown and Yonela Toshe-Mlambo
The 2007 ANC national elective conference in Polokwane was a watershed moment, signalling the downfall of the party.
It also signalled the importance of changing our electoral system to allow for South Africans to elect the president and members of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.
This is because, as Mandy Rossouw reminds us, what happened in the ANC had no consequences for the party only, however, and by and large, had an impact on the state. The person who becomes the ANC president ultimately becomes the South African president.
The election of Jacob Zuma as president at the Polokwane conference is a clear demonstration that the ANC cannot be trusted with the responsibility to elect capable leaders.
The Polokwane conference elected the enemy of South Africa in the name of Zuma, and delivered him straight to the highest office in the land. The corruption sagas and many scandalous affairs during his tenure crystalise our assertions that the ANC elected the enemy of South Africa to the highest office in the land.
The ANC was too stiff-necked to remove Zuma from office. This was notwithstanding demonstrations that he was the enemy of the state. The party went as far as making nonsensical assertions that a swimming pool built for the benefit of Zuma and his family was a fire pool. Damned if you and do damned if you don’t.
The nincompoops who defended Zuma (Fikile Mbalula the number one cheerleader) and supported his rise to the ANC and state presidency today publicly concede their foolishness without showing an iota of repentance and persuade the public to vote again for the ANC.
These are the people who supported the post-2005 Zuma rise to glory, notwithstanding a plethora of dark clouds over him – rape allegations, corruption sagas and divisive politicking, that is, tribal politics that nudged the chief tribalist, Gatsha Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to call out Zuma’s tribalist tendencies and behaviour.
The Zuma tribal politicking that bedevils South Africa can be further attributed to the making of the ANC.
In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, instead of crushing tribal politicking leading to post - ANC trusted Zuma to stem the tide of tribal politicking that Buthelezi was rallying behind in KZN. Nevertheless, Zuma did not stem tribal politicking but reserved it so he could use it to hold South Africa hostage and settle his political scores against his nemesis, with President Cyril Ramaphosa being his number one nemesis.
Of course, Zuma is not the victim he would want us to believe. He equally participated in tribal politics to further his selfish interests because everything revolves around him and his family. For Zuma, the country can go down the drain. The recent behaviour demonstrated in the lead-up to the declaration of the election results and after the declaration of the results clearly showed that the man has no character of a statesman.
He was voted to the presidency because he surrounded himself with ANC members who have an equal lust for power. They hoped that he would be found guilty of all the criminal charges he was facing, which would pave the way for them to rise to the upper echelons of power in the ANC and, subsequently, to the state coffers.
For them to realise and materialise their self-centred interest and libidinal desires to ascend to the higher state echelons, social cohesion was immaterial and secondary, thus they were all silent when Zuma used tribal politics.
The political resurrection of Zuma post-2005 and with the recent establishment of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party is a lesson that inasmuch as South Africa has to deal with racism and gender-based violence, it must equally and decisively deal with the demon of tribalism lest a new version of Zuma rises to haunt African unity.
We had thought the taming of Buthelezi marked an end to tribal politics. However, we were wrong; Zuma resuscitated the demon. In future, it might not be Zuma or a Zulu person who uses tribal politics, but someone from any of the tribes. Tribal politics is a fertile ground for enemies of progress.
* Brown is a BSocSci Honours student at UCT and Toshe-Mlambo is a freelance socio-political commentator
Cape Times