By: Gillian Schutte
The ANC is guilty of believing that women are not ready to lead party – just as the DA believes Africans are not fit to run their own country.
It was with shock and dismay that I read a highly sexist comment in the Sunday Sun article this weekend: Magashule and Zuma heading for a bruising fall-out over Dlamini-Zuma. The quote in question is attributed to an unnamed leader in the ANC (referred to only as a key ally of Ace Magashule) in which he declared that: “The ANC is not ready for a female president. If we field a woman, it will be a free run for Cyril Ramaphosa.”
This deeply problematic utterance stemmed from a meeting held in Free State over the weekend in which the decision was made that: “all those who are anti-CR in KZN should rally behind Zweli Mkhize as their presidential candidate.” In the article, Mkhize’s Chief lobbyist, Sphiwe Blose, indicated that the meeting included an assortment of RET bigwigs, but he declined to disclose their identities.
What does this mean exactly? That a man facing corruption allegations is a better candidate for the presidency than a woman with no corruption stain on her name? The expedience of this logic is that it is prepared to overlook the political seniority and gravitas of both Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Lindiwe Sisulu in favour of Mkhize. On the one hand, they have reduced Sisulu and Dlamini Zuma to mere artefacts in the greater scheme of governance. On the other hand, the notable overlooking of Sisulu as a presidential candidate, and their attack on Dlamini-Zuma, speaks volumes about the threat their partnership poses to the boy’s club.
It also indicates that the boy’s club ethos straddles both factions within the ANC and exposes a downright chauvinistic culture that places little value on the women within their ranks – especially women who will not bow down to the sanctification of their patriarchal hierarchy, a system that has been entrenched in the culture of the ANC.
That Ace Magashule was present in this meeting is a disappointment because he himself has proclaimed that the whole idea of Radical Economic Transformation should embody progressive tenets that include non-sexism. Yet this meeting was premised on a plot to ensure that women are erased from the presidential race, ostensibly based on the assertion that Mkhize is the better candidate while women are not ready to lead the ANC. It is confounding that they would prefer a man with a clear mark against him regarding his complicity in the Digital Vibes scandal, over two women who have an impressive track record in governance.
Though Mkhize, the former minister of health, has not yet been prosecuted in the court of law while his case is pending, the corruption allegations against him hold water in that the tender in question was allocated to the proposed national health scheme which he presided over. In addition, his failure to roll it out has dented confidence in the state’s capacity to oversee such a scheme thus bringing the ANC into disrepute. Furthermore, it is reported that there is actual evidence that his family benefitted from the said scheme which surely makes it a clear case of corruption.
We must then question why the NPA appears to be dragging its feet by delaying the prosecution of Mkhize? Could this signal that there is scheming in the ranks of the system and that the NPA is complicit in political manipulation? Recent history has shown that the NPA has a particular bias in terms of whom it chooses to go after and whom it chooses to let off the hook. If so, are they assisting the chauvinistic war on Dlamini-Zuma and Sisulu in a unified systematic effort to ensure that ‘actual’ progressive women do not have the opportunity to lead the ANC and enact material change on their neoliberal policies?
The matter of both Sisulu and Dlamini Zuma’s track record in corruption-busting, without fear or favour, may also be the motivation for this hare-brained tactical attack on the NDZ/Sisulu partnership. It smacks of a gang-of-thieves pushing an agenda that serves them alone – not the people. It is also hard not to imagine that this scheme includes the usual white oligarchic patriarchs in their thrust to protect their fiscal shenanigans and capital interests. This begs the question of whether other clandestine meetings are taking place in which deals are being brokered with offers of immunity to RET members who have corruption charges waiting in the wings. In this way, it seems that Ramaphosa may well be part of this plot, at the bidding of his white monopoly capital partners, while enticing a portion of the RET faction to crossover. Perhaps the boys club is prepared to put away their ideological differences for self-enrichment by choosing Mkhize as their so-called “unity” candidate.
What insider analysis points to is a blueprint developed to fragment the great potential of unified support behind Dlamini-Zuma in the KZN province, and Sisulu’s popular support in various provinces. It smacks of a divide-and-rule strategy to preserve the status quo, even if potentially under a face different to Ramahosa’s. Seemingly this strategy entails breaking the strong possibility of a unified voice in KZN in support of Dlamini-Zulu and the high possibility that Ramaposa’s campaign is rendered unsuccessful as a result of this.
Why then has the RET faction decided to destroy this possibility if they claim their modus operandi is to unseat Ramaphosa? Could it be a matter of oblique tribalism brewing in its ranks while using Mkhize as a stooge to these ends? The logic in their argument is that throwing their weight behind NDZ is a no-go area premised on the fact that she lost the vote by a margin in 2017, while the Zuma’s still had power. They further posit that now that the Zuma’s have no power it is unlikely that NDZ stands a chance in the upcoming 55th electoral conference, thus opening up the possibility for Ramaphosa to see a second term.
However, insiders say it is unlikely that Mkhize will win the mass KZN support needed to unseat Ramaphosa and thus by fragmenting the KZN voting mass they are in fact ensuring Ramaphosa’s second term. If this is the case Mkhize should consider his empty utilitarian role in this plot and throw his weight behind NDZ/Sisulu team instead.
While the article in question indicates that these statements came from an ANC leader, Blose clearly supports this stance. He is the willing town crier hired to market this ahistorical, colonised Victorian thinking. It is nothing less than a replica of apartheid skulduggery – relegating women to a ‘political homeland system’. Here men own the lion’s share of power while women are locked off in a barren landscape and systematically usurped of their political power. It shows too that the ANC is guilty of believing that women are not capable of leading its party – just as the DA believes that Africans are not fit to run their own country – both views premised on expedience.
We must resist allowing men to sacrifice women on the whim of their self-interest. Just as the Black consciousness/PAC significance in the liberation history of South Africa has been obliterated by the ANC – so too has the role of women in liberation narratives been all but erased. We are made to believe that liberation was the domain of ANC men alone with selective nods being given to the women-in-struggle history.
And though Blose has attempted to situate this comment in the rationale of strategy to ensure Ramaphosa does not see a second term – this does little to hide the blatant patriarchy and falsity embedded in the intent of these words. The statement more than likely indicates that a male-dominated self-serving faction has been organised within the RET while spinning the line that Mkhize is a candidate who has the potential to unite the neoliberal and RET factions of the ANC. Of course, this directly contradicts their assertion that they are going all out to ensure that Ramaphosa does not see a second term.
The roll-out of this patriarchal scheme must be viewed with suspicion and resisted by Branches throughout South Africa if they hope to see their needs and aspirations for land return and an inclusive economy become a reality. It islands now more clear than ever that Sisulu and Dlamini-Zuma are the presidential and vice presidential candidates that the branches should be voting for because they are free of the burden of paternal patronage and they take the issue of corruption seriously.
