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Two decades after publishing a document outlining the kind of leaders it wants, the ANC admits that its guidelines have failed and should be revised because it did not anticipate the speed at which morality in the party would decline.
The search for money has changed the internal election of ANC leaders to such an extent that it is necessary to review the guidelines for choosing leaders.
The ANC’s national executive council, at its July meeting, decided it was time for the party to review its two decades old. With the eye of a needle: choosing the best paintings to lead the transformation document again, which was supposed to have guided the election of its leaders and public representatives since 2001.
This week, before the party’s national general council, which was postponed from mid-year to April or May 2021, a discussion paper was published with 11 others to lead such a review, due to the closure of Covid-19.
The document says the party is in crisis and has two options: “Either let the downward spiral continue or work towards a new beginning.”
As part of the review, the party aims to learn from the Communist Party of China (CCP), which places a strong emphasis on training its members in a political school.
For the CCP, “the fight against corruption is not only a moral issue but also an important political task that acquired a systematic and programmatic approach within the party (from the highest to the lowest levels of structures), the state and the society as a whole ”, says the document.
The CCP’s fight against corruption includes “punishing the party’s top brass” when necessary. The party also closely monitors mega investment and construction projects.
The discussion paper suggests that it might be a good time to realign Through the eye of a needle with the Constitution to avoid litigation when it is implemented. He also wonders if the document might need to be updated to get rid of “dishonest and counterrevolutionary members who have infested the organization.”
We have to approach this with sober minds, without the ra-ra-ra-ra of factionalism and with stubborn perspectives.
The document should also make use of lifestyle audits for leaders and “clear guidelines on how leaders and members in conflict with the law should behave in relation to organizational structures,” a suggestion that was also included in conference resolutions. previous without having been applied until now. .
Recently, the ANC has been grappling again with how to handle leaders who have been involved in corruption and criminal offenses and that they refuse to step aside, despite the recommendations to that effect from the party’s integrity commission, and has sought guidance from a high-ranking official in this regard. In late August, President Cyril Ramaphosa, following a meeting of the party’s national executive committee, declared that the party would not tolerate corruption.
Some leaders accused of irregularities, such as the ANC deputy Bongani BongoHowever, they have so far refused to stop holding public office. ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule, who was indicted last week for corruption linked to a R255 million asbestos roof tender, has thus far also not indicated any intention to step aside.
ANC Undersecretary General Jessie Duarte at a press conference on Friday morning admitted that the NEC will deal with this issue next month.
“It will be a great discussion, it will be a difficult discussion but based on very good advice on silk in the country. We have asked the best for advice, “he said.
The ANC constitution dictates that leaders must make the decision to voluntarily withdraw “based on their conscience,” he said. However, at the August CNE meeting it was decided that “the accused should step aside, full stop,” based on the number of cases currently being heard in the country, he said.
He also added that the courts could rule otherwise or the case could be dropped, leaving a leader high and dry if he had decided to step aside.
“So we are stuck here with political morality and natural justice, and the justice of the country and the Constitution of the country.”
The party has asked a senior lawyer “to give us an opinion on how we should move forward with this issue from the perspective of the step aside so that we take into account the rights of the people of the country in the Constitution of South Africa, we take we take into account the weight of an accusation and we also take into account the unfortunate reality that a number of people are accused so that they can be removed from the positions they occupy by others who want to occupy those positions, ”he said. “It has become a little game that is played especially at the local government level.”
People are criminally liable for their actions but remain innocent until proven guilty, he said.
He asked the media for restraint in reporting on the matter and said he would not respond to journalists’ questions before the party discusses it. “We need to approach this with sober minds, without the ra-ra-ra-ra of factionalism and with stubborn perspectives. We have to go with the purity of thought that only good silk can give you in this country. “
According to the discussion paper, the 2001 document needs to be revised due to “the manifest lack of revolutionary morality and the lack of respect for the values of the movement and particularly its character” that “It has caused the glue that binds its members to release and, consequently, compromises the unity and cohesion of the movement.”
The document laments the fact that “the ANC has increased in membership and yet the quality of its cadres is declining rapidly.” One of the declared goals of the party under former President Jacob Zuma at the centennial celebration in 2012 was to increase the ANC’s membership to more than one million. Some have warned that this could dilute the quality of membership in favor of quantity.
He says that in recent times most members of the ANC “began to have a sense of entitlement to leadership,” and it became “easy” to be a member of the ANC. “Experience, talent, and longevity in the movement began to count for little.” He added that the ANC was “captured by political careerists.”
This “new era” saw a “clear shift from adherence to ANC values and norms to cult-like personality politics and loyalties to factions (rather than) movement,” he says. He warns that political activism has become a career for many and that people have used ANC membership to gain power to gain “access to resources for their own individual gratification.” The discussion paper says Through the eye of a needle It was supposed to have addressed this problem, but two decades later, it persists.
Questions should be asked about how ANC leaders and representatives are chosen, the document says. For example, ask: “Is deep cultural practice within the ANC that individuals do not promote or probe for themselves, still a sustainable mechanism for selecting leaders?” This practice dates from the time when the party was a forbidden organization and leadership had to be discussed in secret.
He also suggests tackling the issue of using money to campaign for internal leadership positions head-on, rather than stifling conversations about it. “The movement must openly discuss the issue of campaigns for leadership positions in the organization and the use of money that accompanies this phenomenon,” he says.
Ramaphosa has been accused by his detractors of violating ANC rules by paying people to treat him before his 2017 elections.
It also suggests more careful member research and a process to get each ANC member to reapply for membership over a suggested two-year period so that they can sign up for the new digital membership system. DM
