By: Clyde Ramalaine
Ace Magashule, the 54th Conference elected Secretary-General of the ANC, did not step aside. Meaning the decision of last month’s NEC as engaged by the NWC on Monday, which leads back to the NEC meeting of this coming weekend, has resolved to suspend him. The suspension will therefore mean he will have to vacate the office. There is strange jubilation outside the ANC and a sense of triumphalism of CR17/22 Faction that they have won this. The letter to Magashule, as drafted by his Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte, was delivered. It is a foregone conclusion that the NEC would ratify this interesting choice at its earliest gathering. As a sideshow, people like Carl Niehaus can expect Duarte in her new acting role to come at them with all might less in pursuit of justice but to appease the CR22 Faction.
It is essential to start debunking a few fallacies. Firstly, the idea that some ANC leaders, when it suits their myopic self-interest agendas, remind fellow members and leaders that the latter joined the ANC as individuals and as volunteers is hardly honest because these pretend the ANC exists without warm physical bodies. There is no ANC until there are people who are defined in its Constitution as members. At another level, the ones who caution others often pretend they are naturally the custodians of the actual values and identity of the ANC. The second myth to debunk is that having anyone step aside fixes the ANC’s entrenched reputation as crafted over the period of It being in office.
Meaning that regardless of who step aside and who does not, the ANC in cumulative and collective leadership remains more than suspect and not ANC members. Because as Zuma’s letter to Ramaphosa categorically stated, it is not the ordinary members that are corrupt. It is the ANC and its tripartite leaders from wards to the National Office of Bearers. To pretend some define this unpalatable identity of the ANC in corruption is to miss the fact that no one in the current NOB is exempted from grave allegations and corruption claims, however, defined. To illustrate the duplicity of the ANC in practice, one must ask how the ANC’s reputation is fixed when for example, DNG accuses Minister Gwede Mantashe of a flawed process and his wife Nolwandle being involved. Yet, Mantashe is leading the barrage on step – aside on a technicality of an NPA instituted court case. Another example is how half the NEC stands accused of corruption in allegations and claims can preside and demand a step aside from Ace and others. An NEC where it is rumoured money flows and was long time paid to get to this coming weekend.
Thirdly, the idea of fixing the ANC’s reputation by getting rid of some people is nothing but a cheap stunt engineered in Corporate South Africa convenient practice. We saw this with the injustice against Katlego, former brand ambassador of Outsurance and others. We saw this with the banks closing some accounts because this renders the Banks reputation vulnerable when it was crystal clear that a specific group conveniently labelled with Jacob Zuma as the centre.
While one may easily dwell on the politics of this choice suspension, politics that demand the removal of Elias Magashule since this, according to the CR22 second – term intoxicated faction, is the only means for Ramaphosa to get to a second term. The problem with this resolution is its ignorance or arrogance to deny that Ramaphosa’s march to a second term evidence him fighting everyone he or his advisors identify as a threat. Ramaphosa is a man at war and fighting many battles on his way to the summit for a second time. He is fighting the ghost of his predecessor, who threatens his second term. Ramaphosa is fighting with Lindiwe Sisulu and hopes to post to the NEC to deal with her in the cabinet reshuffle directed by his CR22 Faction internal and external advisors. Sisulu is arguably the best positioned as the only actual female candidate standing in his path. Ramaphosa has to contend with a daring Duduzane Zuma who made himself available and has courted much attention among the youth as one that cuts across constituencies. Ramaphosa is fighting with his health Minister since Mkhize admitted to friends that Ramaphosa is coming after him. He is engaged in fights with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a de-facto sense because of the Disaster Management Act, runs SA and mumbling a second bite at the ANC high office. I think she must retire.
Regarding his fellow NOB’ members, he is also engaging in covert fights. I have earlier said Deputy President DD Mabuza is not spared because there is a clear campaign that reverberates even internationally; New York times articles opinion pieces that see him next to be dealt with by the Ankola farmer. Ramaphosa may be smiling with Mabuza but has determined to offload him to clear the pack of those who will contest against him.
He is aware of the ambitious Paul Mashatile, the Treasurer General, who may have long ago consulted his attorneys because if anyone in the NOB, he may be the easiest to be dragged by the NPA before the courts when the time is right. DSG Jessie Duarte’s buoyance must be understood against the backdrop that she had straddled the two dominant factions for an extended period. Yet, she cannot deny a proverbial gun of Gupta association and files informs her current stance, which means it’s hardly authentic because Jessie herself was found guilty of fraud in another season.
Chairperson Gwede Mantashe, who increasingly has become what Essop Pahad was for Thabo Mbeki, the bulldog, tears into everyone that goes against the emperor. These associations are not genuine unless you want to appreciate the NUM association as natural. I have elsewhere postulated that we must still understand the impact on the ANC for having had successive NUM leaders serving the office of SG. Some political science student must research this. Dare we say it here, organised labour leaders and workers are by their design minimalist, inward-looking unless they are conscientized. It is even worse since they have been co-opted through the investment entities, meaning its no more shopfloor representatives or worker control, but boards predetermine future relations. It would make for interesting research to know the cumulative impact of organised labour leaders being elected to become ANC Secretary Generals about Ramaphosa, Motlanthe and Mantashe. Therefore, Mantashe led this Mantashe led this ANC cum NUM that thrives from nothing but positional power, corrosively instructive when he earlier argued a long list of ANC members that have stepped- aside.
Some hold the ANC has become what NUM was. So, when you hear Mantashe barking instructions and pretending his chairperson office position [a position created in history to accommodate OR Tambo in ceremonial meaning] makes him the final authority, it is because he too has things to answer on BOSASA, among others. Even now, again in the headlines for the recent RMIPP’s award where DNG, a losing bidder, directly implicated his wife Nolwandle as part of a flawed process. One is saying the politics around this step aside is thick, and it essentially is driven by nothing but self-interest. The sophism peddled that this step aside would fix the ANC leaders in their entrenched lousy reputation because it is hot air. Whether Magashule is suspended or even expelled will materially do nothing to South Africans’ lived experience in scandals and blatant corruption that culminated in the dastard R500bn PPE scandal.
The step-aside in its application is intrinsically linked to Ramaphosa vying for a second term: the primary intention, nothing less, nothing more. While Ramaphosa’s predecessors Zuma and Mbeki were each recalled in the sunset periods of their second terms, he is battling to survive the first term. Meaning if Ace stays, Ramaphosa’s path to that second term is much more complicated, and it remains a road strewn with more than prickly thistles, and his soft unshod feels every prick. In place of Ace, they need one they can manipulate. It is thus far to say the ANC did not suspend Ace. It is the CR22 Faction that suspended Ace.
Well, Ace has options. Firstly, membership in the ANC does come at the sacrifice of the rights of a superior constitutional realty. The ANC’s very own Constitution recognised the rights of its membership that share in a constitutional democratic franchise. It is right here that Ace, since he did not voluntarily step aside have conditional and legal recourse. Secondly, Ace is not an ordinary member of the ANC. He is its elected Secretary-general meaning he holds an office in its national office-bearer. It also means he is employed by the ANC in that position as its CEO today, vacating his role as SG understood in stepping aside or being suspended. Therefore, at two levels, one an elected office has nothing to do with a government position—two as the de-facto CEO of an organisation.
The third reason why Magashule should go legal resonates in this: the ANC’s choice to rely solely on an external office or a structure is rather peculiar since it nowhere provides its infrastructure measurable in ascertaining if a legitimate case exists not. It depends on the NPA uncritically to give effect to its disciplinary infrastructure. Meaning suspending any member must follow a process in which the member was rightly afforded space-time and support to present his version. For those who may argue the ANC has such a structure immanent in its integrity committee, the truth is the Integrity, be it national or original, is no structure that can hear cases and give effect to objective findings. That is besides the fact that the IC remains deeply embroiled in factional politics.
The fourth reason why Magashule and or anyone else must go legal lies in that when the ANC effect a suspension, its internal Constitution affords an appeal process. Such an appeal process against the suspension is a member right. Now here is the conundrum. Magashule did not step aside. He is thus suspended, meaning he has every right to appeal this suspension. When he appeals to the suspension, which is a matter of time, will the ANC move from the premise that it cannot hear him in appeal because his external case is unresolved? This type of argument still registers prejudicial since it suggests the ANC’s appeal system is de facto an empty suitcase. We know it is not because of previous cases. Therefore, Magashule’s appeal will have to be heard. No convenient reliance on any external court processes should be used to prejudice him as an ANC member. Another aspect that warrants engaging constitutes the status of the member and the office he holds. When an appeal is registered since the status of the individual in question under normal circumstances remains intact, meaning until such appeal is duly constituted and heard material, nothing else dictates unless the ANC intends to create special rules for exceptional people from a factional mind.
This step aside in its application weaponizes what is expected to be an independent state prosecutorial structure of an NPA. Instead, the ANC now farms out its lack of keeping its own accountable through solid and duly infrastructural systems and means to the National Prosecuting Authority. The more precarious challenge with doing this is that those in power can use the NPA to prosecute political foes in the name of fixing SA. We have been here before, where state apparatus was used to deal with political enemies. Some claim we are back under Ramaphosa, who, despite having had cases open against him, is nowhere yet a person of interest for the NPA of Shamila Batohi.
What then are the hopes of finding a judge in SA who will hear Magashule free from the media guilt and apply his / her mind where we hear of judges that are bought. It is a given that should Magashule ever appear before the court of Dunstan Mlambo. He will have verdicts like that of the Public Protector because the outcomes of court cases in some instances have become so predictable.
I would think a sensible judge with a serious commitment in jurisprudence blind justice would find against the ANC and in favour of Magashule on account of at least six sustainable reasons.
The first being the ANC never heard the one they suspended in the fairness of any process.
The ANC does not have the legal and otherwise infrastructure to hear any accused and cannot guarantee a fair process.
The ANC’s counter-claim of an Integrity Committee would not hold because the Integrity Committee is intrinsically part of the factional DNA of the ANC. Meaning the ANC at the internal level cannot be trusted to preside, and concluding any suspension hearing safe is done by a third party structure.
Fourthly, the farming out of the ANC’s responsibility to hold its own accountable to external third party structures cannot be condoned.
In the fifth instance, why would the ANC have such implicit trust in structures of state apparatus that are not immune to abuse? In the sixth instance, what does the right appeal mean within the ANC if its process cannot guarantee fairness or be seen to be fair?
In conclusion, Ace must nevertheless go legal and test the commitment of the Constitution, the ANC and the South African judiciary system to practice justice blindly. Such legal action in a fair court will lay bare hypocrisy and nascent incapacity of the ANC, which wholly relies on third-party external structures [NPA] to keep it is own accountable –
