Motlanthe’s gamble a grave miscalculation

KGALEMA Motlanthe, we are told, is ready to challenge President Jacob Zuma and thus rescue the ANC from self-destruction.

Well, he did not say as much. He merely gave us a hint, it is reported.

In addition, he has also given us conditions under which he will partake in this race for the leadership of a party that, with respect to our opposition parties, will remain the ruling party after the 2014 elections.

Motlanthe will not run a normal campaign. He will not get a faction to belong to. Or put his name on a list pre-determined by others. He does not want to become beholden to those who will, after elections, credit themselves as kingmakers.

At a rally in the Eastern Cape this weekend, he said: “Today in the ANC we take away the right of members to elect leadership because today we come with slates and we say to members, ‘this is the slate and you must elect according to the slate.’

“When we do that, we are taking away the right of members to elect leaders of the ANC. Now, by taking that right away, our leaders would be weaker.”

Quite refreshing to hear a leader who applies himself to the issue of leadership; who worries about being compromised by slates and belonging to factions; who is principled in the manner he seeks to ascend the throne. He has also told us that a case has not yet been made for open campaigning.

It is not rocket science that Motlanthe worries about how his contribution to society will be recorded for posterity. He has apparently had a good look around and seen people introducing “tendencies” to the organisation, and felt he needed to act differently, even as he saw that it was opportune for him to take his campaign to his scandal-prone opponent.

It would be easy for Motlanthe to campaign against Zuma. Our leader from Nkandla has many fires to fend off. Using the state to build a R240m palace is one. Just how do you say to learners: there is no money for books, but there is money for a bunker? Anyway.

His views about African justice, not the white man’s justice, is another. His attack on single women as being incomplete and needing marriage is another. What he does within his marriage, as part of his culture, is entirely up to him and his family. But when he uses culture to justify conduct that earned him the title “Casanova president”, then he sends conflicting messages about government policy which he contradicts in his life.

So, if Motlanthe needed to conduct a Barack Obama/Mitt Romney type of campaign, there would be plenty of material to go on. Ever the gentle giant, Motlanthe has opted for a no-campaign strategy. He wants to be wanted, to be needed. This is part of a long history of the ANC. It is the organisation that deploys you based on what members see as your strength. If they think you could make a good president, they will seek your availability and you may not say no.

But therein lies Motlanthe’s folly.

The ANC that behaves like that is long dead. The new ANC members, the people who will be in Mangaung – some of whom were in Polokwane five years ago – are very different to those who were led by Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela. Politics today is about cloak and dagger. It is about numbers. You get numbers when you choose a faction and extend your hegemony. This idealistic posture by Motlanthe is a miscalculation that will backfire.

Motlanthe’s attitude is that the ANC of Tambo and Sisulu will re-emerge in Mangaung and catapult him into power in a decent manner. That is admirable.

But it will not work. Not now. Not in the future. The sooner those close to Motlanthe get this the better for all who dread Zuma’s decade of damage.