IT IS DOG EAT DOG IN THE ANC

SUNDAY TIMES
JOHANNESBURG, SA
By Justice Malala
Jan 26, 2009

You have to be ‘100 percent Zuma’ or you’re history
IT IS impossible not to feel a little sorry for President Kgalema Motlanthe. In the space of one week, one newspaper has written that he is estranged from his wife and a second has alleged that he has impregnated a 24-year-old.

Motlanthe rocking ANC boat

These stories have not appeared by accident in the press, and it is no accident that the names of Motlanthe’s alleged paramours have been provided by “anonymous sources”. These stories are appearing now because of the state of the ruling party: comrade is eating comrade; dog is eating dog.

The ANC is more deeply divided under Jacob Zuma than it was under Thabo Mbeki. The so-called Zuma camp in the ANC is out to ensure that absolutely no one can stand in the way of the man’s ascendance to power. If anyone dares speak they soon find themselves attacked by the likes of Julius Malema, following which they are discredited in the media and in party meetings.

Motlanthe’s biggest problem was that he dared to speak sense. For example, when Malema was attacking the judiciary and claiming he will kill for Jacob Zuma, he was the only one in the ANC to stand up and say this is not right. Consistently, on the big issues, he has defended the party’s sane values instead of the mangled and macabre values some in its new leadership have espoused.

When ANC officials — such as chief whip Mnyamezeli Booi, who is facing a R140,000 fraud charge stemming from the Scorpions’ investigation into the abuse of travel vouchers by MPs, demanded the dissolution of the Scorpions and the revision of the National Prosecuting Authority Act, it was Motlanthe who requested he be given time to apply his mind to the matter before signing.

It soon became clear that those who stand to benefit from the ascendance of Jacob Zuma — a man who will be the lamest and most manipulated president this country has seen — would ensure that this administration of a certain rectitude would not stand. A litany of gossip has been leaked to the press.

When Motlanthe was about to appoint Enoch Godongwana as deputy minister of finance, Zuma’s allies instructed Luthuli House to block the appointment.

Motlanthe is being forced to sign laws despite a clear danger that these might not be constitutional.

This is the way it is now in the ANC. There are those who want Zuma to ascend to power and will do anything to make that happen, and there is a grouping that sees in Motlanthe some of the values of the real ANC. They refuse to join Cope, but they do understand why people like Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa have left.

However, they argue: “I was in the ANC in happy times and I will be in the ANC in these unhappy times”. These are the people who are being squeezed now. For example, the argument put forward by supporters of Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga for her to be premier is that the ANC chair, Paul Mashatile, is not “100 percent JZ”.

To become anyone or anything in the ANC of today, therefore, one has to appear at rallies and on court steps in support of Zuma. That is why you see the likes of Motshekga and others singing Umshini Wami at court. They need to be seen to be “100 percent”, or they, too, will be frozen out.

None of this is new. Many of the leaders who are now appearing next to Zuma on the steps of various courts are the same ones who supported Mbeki when he asserted that HIV does not cause Aids.

So what’s next? Now that Motlanthe is so intimidated that he is considering staying out of politics for a while, the word is that the next man in line for elimination is ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe. You will remember that Mantashe, despite being the chair of the SA Communist Party, has supported finance minister Trevor Manuel on contentious issues such as the now-evaporating Budget surplus and the general thrust of our macro-economic policy.

And while the noose tightens around Mantashe, the witch-hunt in the ANC continues. Any leader not seen as “100 percent JZ” will be marked for elimination from the party. And so a fundamental and heartbreaking shift for the worse is taking place in South African politics.

This week, Barack Obama told his fellow Americans: “The values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.”

It will not happen here.