Be afraid, ANC palace coup comes at a big price

By wide acclamation, the post-apartheid South African constitution is deemed the most liberal in the world. It grants extravagant liberties to different groups, including homosexuals and activists of all sorts to an extent that surpasses even US law.

But this leeway is beginning to look dubious in light of last week’s putsch against President Thabo Mbeki.

The question is, is the power of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), so extreme that it can force an elected President out of office through a decision by a small cabal of national executive officers of the party driven by a chairman with a burning vendetta?

One can try to imagine the Republican party in the US forcing out George W. Bush without resort to the US Congress, leave alone ordinary party members or the voters. Or, say PNU, the shell that it is, throwing out President Kibaki out of office.

It wouldn’t happen. To be sure, Mr Mbeki chose to resign rather than fight the NEC’s decision. But right from the start, the odds were stacked against him; the ANC dominates the National Assembly of South Africa in a way few other parties in the world do.

The curious thing is why those ANC MPs got so timid when their party struck. The reason is because the party can potentially recall any MP who defies the party line.

The rapid resignation of top cabinet ministers — including Vice-President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka — in solidarity with Mr Mbeki raises questions about South Africa’s immediate circumstances. More so as speculation is rife that the defectors may opt to form a new party to rival the 96 year-old colossus we know as the ANC.

On the warpath

The war between Mr Mbeki and the man who has twisted the knife into him, ANC president Jacob Zuma, did not begin when the latter forced out Mbeki from the ANC chairmanship last December.

The battle had come to a head in 2005 when Mr Mbeki sacked Mr Zuma as national Vice-President. That was after Mr Zuma got embroiled in scandal involving his financial adviser who got jailed on a corruption charge.

Mr Mbeki did not help himself when he was seen to be prodding along a follow-up corruption case against Mr Zuma himself which, in its final stages on September 12, was thrown out with the devastating incrimination of the government — meaning Mr Mbeki. That triggered the pro-Zuma forces to go, Zulu-like, on the warpath.

Rarely mentioned is the fact that the head of the agency prosecuting Zuma’s cases was none other than the husband of Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka, the vice-president, who Mr Mbeki was grooming as heir.

What Zuma has just done is to exact ultimate revenge by humiliating Mbeki without having to wait the several months or so the victim was constitutionally entitled to remain in office.

The differences between the two men are routinely portrayed in terms of personality. Mbeki is aloof, intellectual and with little connection with ordinary South Africans. Zuma is earthy, populist and one with his finger on the pulse of the poor townships and of the powerful unions like COSATU.

The description, as far as it goes, is not inaccurate. But the problem between them goes deeper. Mbeki epitomises the urbane wing of the ANC that was exiled abroad but came home to wrest power when apartheid was defeated. Zuma is of the homegrown wing that endured jail in Robben Island. (Zuma, though, was also exiled for sometime).

Then there was the other ‘internal’ wing epitomised by Cyril Ramaphosa that operated through front organisations such as the trade unions.

These wings have always been in conflict, and Nelson Mandela’s greatest failing was the inability to reconcile them. According to the account of South African author William Gumede in his best-selling book Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the ANC Soul, Mbeki was not even Mandela’s favourite.

A symbol

Mr Mandela’s choice of successor was Mr Ramaphosa, who used to be the chief of the powerful National Union of Mineworkers and then became the ANC’s chief negotiator (at Mbeki’s expense) with the apartheid regime and later was elected the general secretary of the party.

In reality, Mr Mandela was always a symbol than an executive when he was President.

The real day-to-day work was done by Mr Mbeki, and that’s why the ANC took the trouble to create the post of Deputy President which Mr Mbeki occupied before succeeding Mr Mandela.

When Mr Mandela proposed Mr Ramaphosa to the ANC’s inner circle, he was overruled by the powerful clique of exiles who favoured Mr Mbeki.

He was one of them anyway, having been groomed by the late ANC President Oliver Tambo, who succumbed to a stroke only months before his country got free, thus paving the way for Mr Mandela’s leadership of the party.

Mr Mandela then proposed a constitutional amendment to create the post of prime minister so as to benefit Mr Ramaphosa. This was also rejected.

Though Mr Ramaphosa soon after opted to go into private business, he remains, bar Zuma, the most potent rival of Mr Mbeki. He retained his position as a member of the ANC’s executive committee, from where he is believed to have quietly backed the coup against Mbeki.

In the meantime, Mr Mbeki had come to accumulate some very powerful enemies inside the high echelons of the ANC.

Besides Mr Zuma and Mr Ramaphosa, there are two other old-line party grandees, Tokyo Sexwale and Matthews Phosa. Mr Sexwale and Mr Phosa are former premiers of Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces respectively.

Not long after he became President, Mbeki blundered when it emerged that he had secretly ordered an intelligence investigation of Mr Ramaphosa, Mr Sexwale and Mr Phosa, who he linked to a plot to oust him from office.

There was an uproar inside the ANC, with Mr Mbeki earning a public reprimand from Mr Mandela himself.

As for Mr Zuma, business interests have always been wary of his leftist rhetoric. When he ousted Mbeki as ANC chairman last December, Johannesburg’s Financial Mail carried this banner headline: Be Afraid.

Equally unsettling is his penchant to chant at rallies the old ANC revolutionary anthem – Umshini Wami (Bring me my Machine Gun). His marital arrangements are highly colourful as well. With five wives under his belt, he rivals Swaziland’s King Mswati in serial polygamy.

Shower after sex

But even as he keeps scoring major political wins against Mr Mbeki, Mr Zuma has spent the last few years fending off scandals, starting with the corruption matter.

Then there was the rape trial sometime back where he ended up looking like a clown; he revealed that he had taken a shower after sex as a way of insuring himself against HIV/Aids.

He also had a very nasty and very public falling out with ex-wife Nkosazana-Dlamini, who has been a member of Mr Mbeki’s cabinet.

Under the South African constitution, the President is elected by the members of the National Assembly, not by direct suffrage. This suited the stiff Mbeki fine. A politician’s popularity or unpopularity with the public may not be necessarily reflected in the level of support within the all-powerful party.

To kick out a President, two-thirds of MPs can pass the vote if they deem he is guilty of a serious violation of the constitution. He can also be deposed through a simple vote of no-confidence which requires just a simple majority.

The third option is resignation, which Mbeki took.

Parliament must then appoint a new President in 30 days. The party did not wait that long.

It swiftly anointed party deputy leader Kgalame Motlanthe to be President pending next year’s elections, which Mr Zuma is eagerly awaiting.