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Lose state power, ditch the corrupt and rebuild party into the force it once was, writes Kgabo Maditodi
In 2012 the ANC celebrated 100 years of existence, focusing on its prominent role in liberating our country.
Last year and this, the centenary celebrations focused on its most revered leaders, OR Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Albertina Sisulu.
These celebrations provided a historical context regarding the party’s enormous influence then as a liberation movement and its intimate relationship with the struggle for a free South Africa.
The celebration of former leaders concentrated on their leadership qualities relative to the roles they played in the struggle.
Tambo was by far its longest-serving president, accredited for having led a fragmented but well-coordinated ANC.
This was the internal ANC, the exile ANC and the underground ANC.
Mandela, the celebrated political prisoner, took over from Tambo in 1991, and went on to lead the new South Africa in 1994 under the theme of reconciliation and nation-building.
Ma Sisulu’s role as a human rights activist cannot be overlooked.
During these celebrations, the ANC spoke eloquently, with pride and passion, about itself and former leaders, with ethics and moral values as areas of emphasis.
With this rich depository constructed around its former inspirational leaders, the fundamental question facing the party today is whether the ANC is a learning organisation?
To answer this question, the quality of its membership and leaders now, as they inform its present unpalatable state of affairs, becomes a relevant factor to look at.
This must be examined in isolation from the material conditions imposed by being South Africa’s governing party to allow an objective assessment.
Unlike Mandela, both Tambo and Ma Sisulu never held public office but ethics and moral values are not relative to the environment within which they are being exercised.
This means the environment has no influence on how they can be exercised because they depend on what is right or wrong, what is correct or incorrect and what is good or bad.
Mandela held public office, yet his ethics and moral values were by all means on a par with his contemporaries.
Any hypothesis that the ANC is a learning organisation will breed further questions: What type of lessons has it learnt from its own history and former leaders?
To what extent do such lessons find expression and resonate with its current leadership and membership?
The majority of its national office bearers now have ethical and moral deficits and thus are incompatible with their celebrated former leaders.
It’s an absolute shame that they associate themselves with the generations of Tambo, Mandela and Ma Sisulu while leading the moral decay facing our country.
ANC deputy president David Mabuza has a cloud over his head because of his alleged illicit activities while at the helm of Mpumalanga.
National chairperson Gwede Mantashe, while a party secretary-general, is alleged to have ensured that his wife received a R639 million catering tender at power utility Eskom.
Deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte and secretary-general Ace Magashule are synonymous with the Guptas.
These factors, involving today’s party leaders, be they allegations or not, suggest that these leaders have not learnt from their forebears.
Their unethical conduct finds expression in the conduct of the party’s membership.
In his last address as party president, at the 2007 national conference, Thabo Mbeki accentuated the need to strengthen the ANC decisively, not just with numbers but critically, with the quality of membership.
He further affirmed that without quality membership embedded in the policies, the value system and the traditions of the ANC, the movement will fail to advance the national democratic revolution, in the interests of the people.
Eleven years later the quality of the ANC membership has deteriorated further.
The political schools established by successive national conferences since 2007, exclusively for ANC members, did not improve membership quality.
The ANC’s state of affairs now suggests the significant majority of its leaders and members have learnt more from Jacob Zuma than any other party leader.
Zuma institutionalised unethical conduct and immoral values which characterise both the party and the state.
With this type of membership and leadership alike, the ANC will not self-correct while in possession of state power.
This is because, at the centre of its unethical character, as Mbeki asserted, is that “certain negative and completely unacceptable tendencies have emerged within our movement, which threaten the very survival of the ANC as the trusted servant of the people”.
Given the extent of the ethical deterioration, as a prerequisite to learn from its past and self-correct, the ANC must first lose state power.
If out of power, corrupt elements are likely to ditch it as proximity to state resources becomes nonexistent and this will allow the party to rediscover its soul and rebuild itself into the formidable force it once was.
Maditodi is a public servant
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