Rhoda Kadalie
I have a confession to make. I have not read Andrew Feinstein’s book, After the Party, for one reason: it exposes the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) corrupt arms deal in detail, yet Feinstein repeatedly declares in interviews that he continues to support the ANC. It is the same with the Treatment Action (TAC) campaign. The TAC opposes the ANC but upholds the view that the ANC generally has the moral high ground to deliver the poor from their oppression, when it has so blatantly failed. In a country where there is no real political contestation, the sanctification of the ruling party leads to tyranny. A political party is a mere instrument to govern and the future of SA depends on the ANC splitting, to enable it to govern in its best form. Feinstein and his ilk will wake up, after the party, and, I fear, with a hangover that will be incurable.
Many lefties and civil society leaders who are deeply disillusioned with their party find it impossible to vote for the opposition or form another opposition. They would rather abstain than break the ANC’s two-thirds majority. It is this majority that has destroyed the country and Parliament through the proportional representative electoral system and its consequent incapacity to hold the executive accountable.
How many nongovernmental organisation (NGO) leaders became spin doctors for Thabo Mbeki when he was so wrong about a lot of things? Where is Richard Calland who in many articles called Mbeki “a brilliant intellectual” even when he spoke rubbish about HIV/AIDS? Where is Chris Landsberg who supported Mbeki on Zimbabwe, yet headed the Centre for Policy Studies?
DISGRUNTLED Mbeki supporters now want to start organisations against a Zuma presidency, which they fear will do what they did when they were in power, but a lot worse. They forget that they laid the foundation for the unruly ANC Youth League; they cultivated an intolerance of opposition; they allowed Mbeki to apply the rule of law selectively ; they allowed the chapter 9 institutions to fail despite complaints from NGOs and the public; they allowed corruption to flourish in Parliament and the government; and now we hear of reports about corruption in Eastern Cape and the Land Bank that the president had been sitting on for months.
Mbeki became an autocrat because of this slavish support and many, who now turn their backs on him, would have kowtowed to him had he won at Polokwane. Kader Asmal’s plan to start a “national civil rights movement” is commendable, but what is regrettable is that in the same vein he condemns Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille for challenging Jacob Zuma to support this declaration.
While I welcome attempts to hold our elected officials accountable, I reject with contempt the idea that resistance and opposition can only come from within the ANC and the left. Sadly, much of the current opposition is coming from Mbeki supporters who lost against Zuma in Polokwane and who now suddenly worry about the very Constitution and the judiciary they allowed to deteriorate when they were in power. Where were they when Peter Mokaba was shouting “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”?
When Zille said she would be prepared to join a realignment of political forces for the good of SA , Ebrahim Fakir and Steven Friedman immediately repudiated the idea, instead of welcoming such an initiative.
Ad hoc sniping from the sidelines, dressed up as analyses that change from president to president, cannot replace deep historical analyses of government/governance in postcolonial Africa. We need to learn from civilised democracies — that people swing from right to left all the time, especially when their governments fail them, as in Spain for example. They do not personalise politics as we do. They understand that Parliament and the government are the public servants of the people. Here not even the intellectuals know that.
Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town.
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