The ANC needs to take a long, hard look at itself

Had the ANC not displayed its traditional arrogance and instead taken the advice of its elders when they asked for Jacob Zuma to step down when it was necessary, the party wouldn’t be in the mess it is in today.

Zuma disrespected not only the party veterans and stalwarts, including the late Ahmed Kathrada, he undermined the party’s integrity commission, then led by another stalwart, Andrew Mlangeni, who begged the former president to do the right thing. That set a dangerous precedent that the commission could be defied.

Now, for its sins, the ANC must face the electorate because it failed to see that the fielding of immoral, unethical candidates was not good.

Despite being found with their hands in the Bosasa scandal, Nomvula Mokonyane, Gwede Mantashe, Thabang Makwetla and MP Vincent Smith, were all included on its list and court findings that both Bathabile Dlamini and Malusi Gigaba lied under oath and Thuli Madonsela’s probe that found that Mosebenzi Zwane facilitated state capture by the Guptas were ignored.

To the ANC, these people were elected democratically by its branch delegates at Nasrec and therefore it could not interfere. That is passing the buck when the buck actually stops with Luthuli House itself.

This says there is nothing that the party could do to change the NEC list even if murderers, rapists, abusers of women and children, money launderers and extortionists, perverts, robbers and the corrupt are elected, because it’s the will of the branches, it’s democracy.

But when it is convenient, the ANC can chop and change its elected NEC list in the name of gender equity, generational mix and racial and regional representation. The question then is: what stops it from similarly removing its rotten tomatoes and replacing them with leaders of good moral and ethical standing?

Now they want to act after the fact because of a general public outcry. As if there was no public outcry when these candidates were elected at Nasrec and when Zuma showed everybody the middle finger and refused to quit.

It’s time for the ANC to go back to the drawing board by instilling a culture of ethics and leadership morality within its structures and general membership before it talks about grassroots democracy. It must start by applying moral and ethical standards during the election of its branch, regional and provincial executive committees, the NEC and structures such as the ANC women’s and youth leagues.

There is no better document to do this than the ANC’s own Through the Eye of the Needle. Anyone who failed the integrity commission’s scrutiny must be excluded and replaced with upright members without having to restart the election.

By submitting its lists to the IEC before the integrity commission was putting the cart before the horse, as such lists cannot be withdrawn or changed until after the election.

The ANC is bound to learn the painful lesson that the 4,000 delegates who elect its NEC or the approximately one million party members alone cannot bring it into government. It’s the 10 million non-ANC voters who put their Xs next to the party at every election that should claim the moral high ground at the ballot box.

Eric Naki

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