Mangaung – takes, outtakes and takeouts

Various commentators, politicians and analysts have attempted to characterise Mangaung, to define the moment’s essential nature. Below are two takes I found interesting with some words from me on why I found them thus. After that I include a more general summary of what happened with the voting results for the Top Six and the National Executive Committee.

M&G:  will the scandal prone authoritarian traditionalist and the constitutionalist businessman lick the platter clean together?

Nic Dawes – editor of the doughty Mail & Guardian suggested (on December 21 2012) that Zuma has moved the ANC “dangerously away” from the urban and middle classes and is starting to overtly exhibit rural, patriarchal and authoritarian values inimical to the middle classes. He suggests that Cyril Ramaphosa’s election at Mangaung is (ultimately) an attempt to woo urban and middle class voters back to the ANC – with Zuma having secured traditional and rural support. But, asks Dawes, “can the constitutionalist businessperson avoid contamination by association with a scandal prone, authoritarian traditionalist?”

Good question … except that I am starting to realise that Zuma would never have appointed Ramaphosa if he posed a potential threat in any way at any stage no matter how far they (the Zuma camp) are looking into the future. Ramaphosa is in the house … the Nkandla house … it’s too late for decontamination.

Dawes also makes the useful formulation that Motlanthe’s challenge was a principled attempt to “confront the ANC with the enormity of its Jacob Zuma problem”. I think Dawes is right – or at least that the Motlanthe strategists he spoke to had this conception of what they were up to. However the whole Motlanthe endeavour feels much more like the foolish (but strangely attractive) arrogance of Don Quixote tilting at windmills, or, more tragically, this stupid and noble rush onto heavily defended enemy positions:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Read the brilliant, awful, manipulative (in my admittedly limited estimation) Tennyson poem and its glorification of cruel and stupid military and administrative incompetence here – ok, glorification of those acting as a result of such incompetence . (You will see from voting patterns at the end of this post that it was closer to 1000 than 600, but aside from that I thought the Tennyson metaphor held up rather well?)

The nationalists, anti-nonracial, populist versus the … who?

If I was on one of those TV or radio programmes that specialise in asking stupid questions right at the end, and I was asked: which South African political analyst do you rate highest? Then “Steven Friedman” is the answer that would most likely trip off my tongue.

With that disclaimer, I am forced to take issue with an aspect of his characterisation of what happened at Mangaung (published in the Business Day – 27/12/12 – here for that link).

Friedman characterises the Anyone But Zuma or Forces For Change (that is the defeated faction at Mangaung) as “the nationalist group, which wants a bigger black share of business … and whose members use radical-sounding language to pursue that goal.” No quibble from me there.

But then Friedman goes on to characterise the group that opposed ‘the nationalists’, that is the group that was victorious at Mangaung, as “a loose alliance stretching from the left to centrist business people who believe the nationalists threaten the ANC’s commitment to nonracialism and are corrupting the movement because they are too close to the wealthy.”

The implicit injunction, one I believe we should resist, is: choose a better devil.

Break it down (and I paraphrase what I imagine the argument would have to entail – and I am taking this much further than is implicit in Friedman’s article, but his argument leads inevitably to this point):

We support both Jacob Zuma (the patriarchal and authoritarian traditionalist with rigid and ruthless control of the security establishment and the ANC – and we support him despite his family and friends having become fabulously wealthy since his winning to high office) and Cyril Ramaphosa (the billionaire ex-unionist who has effectively used the black economic empowerment imperative to accumulate his wealth and will occupy his office with zero power and purely at the beck and call of the Nkandla Crew).

… because …

… they are a whole lot better than the nationalist, anti-nonracial Julius Malema, Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa, Fikile Mbalula and ANC Youth League?

I think not.

Extract from my summary as of last week

The expected

1. The leadership and policy results of the African National Congress National Conference was a strongly status quo outcome and a victory for the incumbents (the Zuma camp) and their political and economic policies
2. The leadership challenge to Zuma (with Kgalema Motlanthe the unwilling champion of that challenge) was routed, as was the policy platform most closely associated with the challengers (the nationalisation of mines). The extent of the victory is clearly and accurately revealed in the leadership election results detailed in Addendum 1.
3. Cyril Ramaphosa’s election as deputy president has been heralded in much of the financial and popular press as a market-friendly outcome and, in some versions, a salvation of the ANC. It should be pointed out, however, that whatever qualities Ramaphosa possesses (and in my experience he possesses many excellent qualities) these will be exercised as the deputy to an extremely confident and powerful (in party and state terms) president, a president at whose behest Ramaphosa will serve and as a result of whose political influence Ramaphosa was elected. To further dampen any untoward enthusiasm it should be pointed out that Ramaphosa has no base in any constituency within the ANC or within the ruling alliance.
4. Because the National Conference of the ANC is not the kind of forum in which decisive interventions or radical new directions can be formulated (it takes place over 5 days, has a long and complex agenda, entails many rounds of voting by 4000-plus branch delegates who are often unskilled in policy matters and who are generally organised into large voting blocks by contending factions for leadership) there were no such interventions and (no unexpectedly) new policy directions.
5. However, the full policy platform of the incumbents, which does entail significant new state intervention in the economy (described and assessed by me in interminable detail elsewhere) was accepted in full (but in a very broad, vague, poorly attended and poorly discussed commission process at the conference.) The ANC is yet to publish the full policy resolution of the conference and I expect it to be a carefully phrased call for more state intervention, but in a language unlikely to alarm financial markets. The details here are important  but I will have to postpone further analysis until the ANC decides it has crafted the resolution carefully enough.

The less expected

1. Mangaung did only confirm policy and political trends that were already extant – and widely known. However the extent of the dominance of the Zuma camp and the weakness of the challengers took some commentators by surprise – see Addendum 1 for the details of the election results.
2. The total failure of the political factions aligned to the ANC Youth League to make any impact on the conference policy-making process did come as a surprise to me – I would have thought there would be a rear-guard action around the ‘nationalisation of mines’ call, but none appeared (to me, anyway).
3. It would have been politic for the Zuma camp to allow some of those who challenged for the top six positions (and their allies) to be represented on the 80 person National Executive Committee. It seems that either the desire to demonstrate total dominance won the day, or the Zuma strategists lost control of the popular mobilisation against the challengers. Either way it leaves a huge internal constituency of the ANC (roughly 25%) without representation at any leadership level within the party – an obviously destabilising outcome. However the Zuma camp is likely to invite some of the excluded individuals back into leadership positions, on terms satisfactory to the victors.

(Post Scrip reminder:  outstanding is the ANC National Conference resolution on policy. The resolution that emerged out of the June Policy Conference took several months to formulate and be published. I do not expect the Mangaung Resolution to take things much further than the resolution from the policy conference. Much of the detail will be dealt with in the New Year and largely in Cabinet and government departments, rather than in party structures.)

Addendum 1

… the results below are culled from various news sources and people who attended the conference (I found the full NEC results at Politicsweb).

A – Voting and results for the top six

(Interesting things to note: Zuma got the least votes of all contested positions and Gwede Mantashe the most – an observation I borrowed from Steven Friedman’s previously discussed Business Day article.)

• President – Jacob re-elected with 2983 votes to Kgalema Motlanthe’s 991 votes.
• Deputy President – Cyril Ramaphosa elected with 3018 votes to Mathews Phosa’s 470 and Tokyo Sexwale’s 463.
• Secretary General – Gwede Mantashe re-elected with 3058 votes to Fikile Mbalula’s 901.
• Deputy Secretary General – Jessie Duarte elected unopposed.
• Chairperson – Baleka Mbete re-elected with 3010 votes to Thandi Modise’s 939.
• Treasurer General – Zweli Mkhize elected with 2988 votes to Paul M Mashatile’s 961.

B – Voting and results for the National Executive Committee

(Note that no challenger to the Zuma camp in the top six election was elected to the National Executive Committee. Note, as well, that the only prominent member of the anti-Zuma camp, Winnie Mandela, just scraped onto the list, having topped the poll for the NEC election at Polokwane in 2007.)

Rank	Name	Sex	Votes
1	Dlamini-Zuma, Nkosazana Clarice	F	2921
2	Gigaba, Malusi	M	2669
3	Sisulu, Lindiwe	F	2658
4	Chabane, Collins	M	2585
5	Radebe, Jeff	M	2570
6	Pandor, Naledi	F	2517
7	Hanekom, Derek	M	2497
8	Gordhan, Pravin	M	2465
9	Mboweni, Tito	M	2463
10	Mthethwa, Nathi	M	2450
11	Sisulu, Max Vuyisile	M	2442
12	Dlamini, Bathabile Olive	F	2423
13	Jordan, Zweledinga Pallo	M	2407
14	Nzimande, Blade	M	2406
15	Mthembu, Jackson	M	2387
16	Ndebele, Joel Sibusiso	M	2379
17	Mapisa-Nqakula, Nosiviwe	F	2353
18	Motsoaledi, Aaron	M	2339
19	Godongwana, Enoch	M	2334
20	Kodwa, Zizi	M	2306
21	Ebrahim Ebrahim	M	2303
22	Dlodlo, Ayanda	F	2300
23	Brown, Lynne	F	2293
24	Cwele, Siyabonga C	M	2245
25	Mokonyane, Nomvula Paula	F	2240
26	Mfeketo, Nomaindia	F	2228
27	Dlamini, Sidumo Mbongeni	M	2213
28	Nxesi, Thulas	M	2202
29	Bhengu, Nozabelo Ruth	F	2195
30	Nkoana-Mashabane, Maite	M	2169
31	Bapela, Obed	M	2167
32	Masetlha, Billy Lesedi	M	2161
33	Ramatlhodi, Ngoako Abel	M	2156
34	Davies, Rob	M	2151
35	Motshekga, Angie	F	2146
36	Zulu, Lindiwe	F	2142
37	Netshitenze, Joel	M	2138
38	Nkwinti, Gugile	M	2100
39	Joemat-Petterson, Tina	F	2076
40	Mabhudafhasi, Rejoice	F	2042
41	Shabangu, Susan	F	2036
42	Oliphant, Mildred N	F	2019
43	van der Merwe, Sue	F	1992
44	Capa-Langa, Zoleka Rosemary	F	1984
45	Mthembi-Mahanyele, Sankie Dolly	F	1930
46	Phaahla, Joe	M	1916
47	Skwatsha, Mcebisi	M	1888
48	Xasa, Fikile D	M	1881
49	Majola, Fikile (Slovo)	M	1872
50	Mashamba, Joyce	F	1868
51	Tshwete, Pam	F	1849
52	Mabe, Sisi	F	1823
53	Sizani, Stone	M	1803
54	Cele, Bhekokwakhe Hamilton (Bheki)	M	1736
55	Magadzi, Dikeledi	F	1732
56	Tolashe, Sisisi	F	1715
57	Gcabashe, Lungi	F	1695
58	Mmemezi, Humphrey M Z	M	1679
59	Dlulane, Beauty N	F	1674
60	Moloi, Pinky	F	1664
61	Mokoto, Pinky	F	1644
62	Mashinini, Sam	M	1643
63	Zokwana, Senzeni	M	1600
64	Mabe, Pule	M	1586
65	Yengeni. Tony Sithembiso	M	1570
66	Mafu, Nocawe	F	1549
67	Mahlobo, David	M	1495
68	Mapulane, Philly	M	1462
69	Maphatsoe, Kebby	M	1456
70	Ntwanambi Nosipho, Dorothy	F	1450
71	Semenya, Machwene Rosinah	F	1449
72	Segabutla, Miriam	F	1403
73	Moloi- Moropa, Joyce C	F	1396
74	Molewa, Ednah	F	1361
75	Ntombela, Sefora Hixsonia (Sisi)	F	1348
76	Manganye, Jane	F	1276
77	Letsatsi-Duba, Dipuo	F	1057
78	Mtintso, Thenjiwe	F	875
79	Mandela, Nomzamo Winfred (Winnie)	F	841
80	Didiza, Thoko	F	817

Talking head, the kept politician, Mangaung, Ramaphosa, Motlanthe and other matters

I was interviewed on eCNA by the excellent Gareth Edwards yesterday about some matters relating to Mangaung, policy and succession. Catch that here.

… and here is a part of my weekly news summary from Monday morning:

• Nelson Mandela hospitalised on the eve of Mangaung conference;
• A leaked KPMG audit conducted for Zuma’s corruption trial indicates serious money from some surprising sources has flowed into the bank accounts and bonds of what Mail & Guardian is calling the “kept politician”;
• Mangaung is going to be all about economic policy – and ANC leaders are very directly signalling this, so that what is ultimately decided won’t come as too much of a shock… it is best to sit up and take notice now;
• With the presidential leadership contest all but resolved, the only interesting story is the choice between Motlanthe and Ramaphosa;

Nelson Mandela hospitalised

It only just made the Sunday papers, but: “President Jacob Zuma wishes to advise that former President Nelson Mandela has today, 8 December 2012, been admitted in hospital in Pretoria to undergo tests… As said before, former President Mandela will receive medical attention from time to time which is consistent with his age” – presidential spokesman, Mac Maharaj.

So what?

There is no direct financial market implication of Nelson Mandela’s health (he has long since stopped playing any role in relation to South African politics or policy). However, the financial markets do not list the price of every important thing. At the level of sentiment, it will be impossible to separate the growing unease about many aspects of South African politics (see below) from the failing health of the universally loved founding father of the country.

Secret audit reveals how millions flowed to President Zuma

The Mail & Guardian has placed on its website a secret September 2006 KPMG audit of fund flows into Jacob Zuma’s accounts – it is still there this morning. According to the Mail & Guardian: “The report exposes the president as a ‘kept politician’ – a financial freeloader who accepted money and favours on a routine and increasingly extravagant basis not only from his so-called financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, but also from other benefactors, including Nelson Mandela.” The report was prepared for Zuma’s now cancelled corruption trial, and has thus never been contested in court. Mac Maharaj, spokesman for Mr Zuma, said: “Much of the information that is being headlined seems to have been in the public arena already, from the Schabir Shaik trial. I’m finding it strange that it is coming up now, in this fashion.” Here for M&G report and here for the full 490 page report.

So what?

The report should not derail Zuma’s re-election at Mangaung because, as Maharaj so clearly points out, only a few details within the 400-page document are ‘new’. The ANC elected Zuma as its president at Polokwane in December 2007 at the height of public interest in the details of the recently withdrawn corruption charges against him. These details did not stop the ANC then and are unlikely to influence the Mangaung outcome now. The report does add to the gloom around the apparently out of control cronyism at the heart of the ruling party – leaving us with low levels of confidence that Zuma and his government might be able to address the serious challenges facing the country and the economy.

Economic policy is where Mangaung action is – and most of that will be about resources

You had to be watching carefully, but the top ANC leadership signalled over the weekend that economic policy will shift at Mangaung and, further, that too much attention on the leadership struggle will cause observers to miss what’s important. In the Sunday Times, Gwede Mantashe argued the toss in a story headed “Mangaung is all about the economy”; in the Sunday Independent, Jesse Duarte did the same under a headline “Mangaung will clear all confusion over ANC policy”; and in the Mail & Guardian, Jeff Radebe wrote “Mangaung turns on economics”.

In all of these stories (coordinated in line, length, content and ordering, but presenting themselves as independent pieces by these top ANC leaders), it is argued that the National Development Plan co-ordinated with the New Growth Path is central to what “needs to be done”, that state intervention is the key to job rich and equitable growth, that mineral policy is the central area of change that can be expected at Mangaung, that BEE needs review, that land reform needs radical intervention, and that the ANC must be rebuilt to guide these processes.

City Press looked more closely at the State Involvement in the Mining sector document and pointed out that private sector companies were lobbying hard against the ANC’s intention to add a resource rent tax and to control the price of mineral inputs into the domestic economy – but that they (private sector companies) are unlikely to stop or significantly curtail the ANC’s plans.

So what? As we have stated (perhaps repetitively), the ANC is likely to recommend a rise in taxes in mining (or rather a shift to a resource rent tax regime that will have the same impact) and it (the ANC) is likely to decide on taxes on “unbeneficiated” mineral exports to secure supplies for domestic manufacturing combined with price controls as a stimulus to domestic manufacturing. And this is just in relation to the mineral sector. There are plans for state intervention across several sectors and we believe these will have serious impacts on investment in South Africa – many negative, some positive, but generally different across sectors.

 

Cyril Ramaphosa versus Kgalema Motlanthe

All the newspapers reviewed here (and several online sources) discussed in detail the fact that the Zuma camp has essentially nominated Cyril Ramaphosa for deputy president – making him a dead certainty for president in 2017 (if it plays that way).

So what? The Mangaung presidency issue is settled and the only interesting bit (as far as the electoral process is concerned) is the election of the deputy president.

The Zuma camp is entirely in control of the president/deputy choice, so when we analyse what might happen we have to ask: what is the imperative of the Zuma camp?

Well, that’s an easy one: to ensure that the corruption charges do not return and that the candidate and his continued ownership of his (and his camp’s/family’s) acquired assets remains secure even after Zuma has left office.

So which deputy choice could better ensure this outcome?

Would a President Ramaphosa eventually, following the logic of the Constitution and the law, and impelled by some hope for his own legacy, end up allowing Zuma to be charged for the original corruption charges?

Would Motlanthe?

I think Ramaphosa might, although I would not feel entirely confident that the Zuma camp could not construct a deal that keeps him (Ramaphosa) beholden long enough to ensure the achievement of the imperative stated above.

And Motlanthe?

I don’t think Motlanthe would pursue the corruption charges. He is a man who hates having to take decisions that “divide the house”. Taking down Nkandla is going to require something even more invasive and destructive than taking down Polokwane. I cannot see Motlanthe as the author of such a story.

As things stand, the nominations indicate that Ramaphosa will be elected as Zuma’s deputy. However, a last-minute ‘unity’ compromise might easily allow the Zuma camp to appoint the probably more pliable Motlanthe as deputy.

A few deep blue thoughts as we rush towards Mangaung – Part 1

Annus horribilis

This has undoubtedly been the worst year for South Africa – at too many levels to name – since 1994. There is much I have wanted to say here but couldn’t find the time.  So I am going to rapidly fire off a series of posts, as my professional duties tail off towards the end of the year.

That probably means potential readers will soon be on holiday and lounging on a beach somewhere.

So let me be cheery to start:

I am positive about South Africa in the medium to long-term … but it’s complicated

My first-case long-term view on South Africa is somewhere between hopeful and good. I don’t think societal outcomes are primarily about the choices made by politicians and their parties – if they (societal outcomes) were (dependent on the choices made by politicians), my view would be significantly more negative.

Instead I think societies change in response to shifts of deep structural features – in themselves and in the ‘global world’ within which the society and country exists. South  Africa – its institutions, politics and economy – is being buffeted by the flood emanating from the unwinding of the distortions of the past, interacting with the ‘flooding-in’ of elements of the global society and economy previously locked out … or previously just less ‘globalised’  as was the case in the world of the 80′s and before.

The most obvious domestic feature of this is the rapid growth of a class of South Africans who have ‘emerged’, settled and accumulated assets. They have done this because they can i.e. as a result of the removal of political and legislative obstacles created by Apartheid. Alternatively they have emerged because such settled and skilled groups are a requirement of newly globally integrated labour and consumer goods’ markets. It works both ways – one as a push the other as a pull. Either way the black middle class is growing and on the move to become the prime determinant of much of what lies ahead for South Africa.

The overwhelming numeric majority of this class is a normal middle-class (public and private sector workers, teachers, artisans, skilled workers and other professionals) previously denied by law and repression the chance of improving their lot (to accumulate assets and get ahead). But along with this classic middle-class has come a slurry of individuals and groups who have more specifically seized the opportunities to extract a rent, opportunities created by the legal and political imperative to transform patterns of ownership and control.  Again, most of these are rational individuals who have seized the legal opportunities that the imperatives for transition have presented them with. However, and this is the important bit, a very large (in terms of accumulated assets and power) part of this group includes those who have successfully harnessed political power with the specific intentions of diverting public resources and/or other resources available for redistribution (the assets of private companies, for example) into their own hands.

The point of all of this is that once through the door, once securely established, that elite, its children, its family networks will attempt to re-establish the basic economic rules that allow for the formal and ordered regulation of property, the appropriate separation between the public and the private and the establishment of the rule of law – an imperative that already characterises the ‘classic middle-class’ that has emerged alongside this elite. In short, once inside the enclosure, the new elite will attempt to lock the door and secure the perimeters. It’s part of normal capitalist development and we will get through it in about 10 – 20 years. Meanwhile we are going through what Karl Marx would have called a form of “primitive accumulation” – with all the attendant threat and chaos.

Once this class has formed, emerged and assumed its central place in South African society – and Census 2012 suggests this is in process – our politics, parties, structures of governance will be forced to adapt to the imperatives of the new underlying configuration. This is the kind of tectonic force that effortlessly shuffles and cuts and pastes our politics and our parties to suit itself.

In 12 years’ time we are going to look around and remark at how surprising it is that South Africa has settled down and become such a productive and cooking hub, that corruption and nepotism has retreated so far and so quickly, that the political certainties of the past have so quickly and radically changed for the better.

Or that’s the outcome I have bet my meager resources on …. and before you follow my lead, remember; there is a reason those resources are as meager as they are.

I am positive about South Africa (or at least about reduced volatility) in the immediate post-Mangaung period

Once the political contest for the presidency is resolved and once the platinum sector strikes settle, the deep uncertainties driven by these interacting cycles will recede.

But that is enough sunshine for now  … because what has driven the intensity of those cycles is still very much present and will feature prominently in the South African investment and operating environment in the next 5 – 10 years, revealing itself in crises at least as serious and awful as the Marikana Massacre and the Mangaung contest. (Much of this will be the subject of the next few “deep blue thoughts” posts.)

Motlanthe or Ramaphosa?

At Mangaung the presidency issue is settled and the only interesting bit (as far as the electoral process is concerned) is the election of the deputy presidency and in the general balance that is achieved within the NEC.

I will leave the NEC for a later discussion.

I think the Zuma camp is entirely in control of the president/deputy choice, so when we analyse what might happen we have to ask: what is the imperative of the Zuma camp?

Well, that’s an easy one: stay out of prison after you have left office and keep your loot forever. That’s the thing and the whole of the thing.

So which deputy choice could better ensure this outcome?

Would a President Ramaphosa eventually, following the logic of the Constitution and the law, and impelled by some hope for his own legacy, end up allowing Zuma to be sent to prison?

Would Motlanthe?

I think Ramaphosa might. I would have trusted the younger version to do the right thing a lot more than I do this older one. This man has done a lot of complex dealing with “the cold realities”, he has supped with with a Dark Lord or two along the way  … and I would not feel entirely confident that the Zuma camp could not construct a deal that keeps him (Ramaphosa) beholden until long after Nkandla Incorporated has broken free of the threat of justice and been laundered till it shines like a blue chip.

And Motlanthe?  I am grinding my way through “Kgalema Motlanthe: A Political Biography” by Ebrahim Harvey (there’s more than one medicine measure of hagiography in there, but despite that I am starting to believe that KM might just be a seriously good person). However, I don’t think that means he would send Zuma to jail. He seems like a man who hates having to take decisions that “divide the house”. Taking down Nkandla is going to require something even more invasive and destructive than Polokwane. I cannot see Motlanthe as the author of such a story.

It would be a relatively easy matter for the Zuma camp to claim the imperative of unity, and decide to accept Motlanthe back into the fold – instead of Ramaphosa – and therefore as the successor president in 2017.

Enough for now.

The connection between violent ANC contest and the piles of Nkandla treasure

I am not encouraged, in my professional life, to be too colourful in what I write or say.

This morning I reviewed the weeklies – as I do before 06h30 every Monday morning – and found myself having to strip more metaphor and vitriol than usual from what I had to say.

For example – still right here in my clipboard, recently cut from the document I sent to clients – is this little piece of over-the-top contemptuous bitterness: “it paints a picture of an engorged elite sitting atop piles of treasure they will defend at all and any cost.”

I remember vaguely from 04h00 this morning a picture lurking somewhere in my head: there are about fifty fat dragons uncomfortably sprawled over their separate piles of loot in a disgusting, dank cave somewhere far below the smoking and ravaged surface. These beasts are  dangerously fanged in a mean, cowardly way and entirely without the pretty iridescence of most dragons I have encountered – and they hate and fear each other and anyone else who might take their stuff …

… but obviously I never went down that route.

Last Friday’s Mail & Guardian had particularly excellent – and depressing – stories about the the Nkandla looting. See here for the memorable editorial that sums up the ugly story; here for the alleged Maharaj arms deal link, here for the Gupta’s further bankrolling of the Zumas’ excessive domestic costs … and here, from the Sunday Times, a clear view of how significant public funds were diverted to the Zuma coffers and asset base, but also that much of that money did not actually arrive because it was creamed off by cronies before it even got spent on the Zuma friends and family.

The point, I think, is that the African National Congress is fast resembling sets of competing patronage networks – and little else. This is revealed in the violence and vigour in its internal contests for position. There is zero evidence of ideological division; all claims to the contrary, to my mind, are, sadly, often revealed to be false fronts: sheep’s clothing for wolves trying to sneak up on their prey.

Anyway, if it is all too exhausting and depressing to read in the original here is an extract from my morning summary:

• The ANC nomination process draws to a chaotic and sometimes violent close – with Jacob Zuma achieving something of a Pyrrhic victory
• Out of this might come one result welcomed by financial markets: the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as Zuma’s deputy and, hence, his (almost) automatic rise to the presidency in 2017
• The body of the news commentary was a painful forensic tracking of the corrosive flood of money pouring over the ruling family from some worrying sources
• The Gold Fields’ unbundling was portrayed as a straightforward vote of no-confidence in the country and its leadership – despite the clear and coherent denials by the company itself
• The death of two much loved and respected South Africans seemed to increase the anxiety about the present and the future

ANC nominations close

City Press counts 2,256 implied votes for Zuma (slightly more than 2,251 he needs to win at Mangaung) emerging out of the nomination process. Table 1 below is what we get as a running total,  including the Leagues. (Note: the votes are ‘implicit’ from the nominations;  where branches-nominated candidates at the provincial conferences we have made the fairly safe assumption that most of these branches would vote for that candidate at the National Conference in December.)

Table 1: Zuma has it – and the 986 outstanding from Limpopo, Western Cape and Northwest is not enough to make a difference

Province/League	Zuma		Motlanthe
Eastern Cape	392		211
Northern Cape	160		23
Limpopo		Conference delayed – violence etc.
Western Cape		Conference delayed – disputes etc.
Mpumalanga		427	17
Free State		249	0
Northwest		Conference delayed – shots fired etc.
Gauteng		173	238
KwazuluNatal		856	0
Women’s League		45	0
Youth League			45
Veterans league		45	0
		2307	538

So what?

Nothing much. It is going as expected – ever since the Julius Malema campaign was defanged with him (Malema) facing gradually escalating criminal charges related to his alleged ‘tenderpreneurial’ activities it was all over for the Anything But Zumas (ABZs). The interesting dynamics are in the side-lines, with the Zuma camp having backed Cyril Ramaphosa for deputy – partly because their first choice, Kgalema Motlanthe, refused to say he wouldn’t stand against Zuma for president and refused to campaign as part of any slate. Motlanthe’s meticulously principled position may get its just rewards in the fullness of time, but for now he seems to have abandoned the field to those with no qualms  about the tactics they use to secure the ever richer prizes that come with controlling the ANC patronage network.

 

Nkandla, Gupta, Duduzane, arms deal, Maharaj, Mrs Bongi  Ngema-Zuma and Baroda Bank

If anyone was wondering why the ANC battle for power is so intense and bloody, at least one major set of explanations can be found in the incredibly complex (and rich) web of transactions between those at the centre of power and various groups and companies that flood money towards them – presumably because they are such a good investment.

Headlines like: “Zuma’s Home Economics 2 – Guptas ‘bankroll’ wife’s mansion”, “Did arms firm pay Mac’s bill?” ,  “Living in the lap of luxury”, “Bankrolling their way to the top” and “Private deals that demand scrutiny” (Mail and Guardian); “Nkandla: who will take the fall?”, “Joemat-Pettersson flew back for Zuma’s wedding (at R400 000 cost to taxpayer)” (City Press); “Millions stolen from ANC Elders’ (Sunday Independent)  … and just too many more to list here.

So What? The fact that weekly, the tone and intensity of the popular press is becoming more explicitly accusatory of those within the financial web around the Zuma family, and that there has been no significant attempt by those accused of very considerable impropriety to defend themselves has, to my mind, two possible explanations. The first is that the accusations are so overblown, inaccurate and sensationalist that the Zuma family, the presidency, the Gupta family and Mac Maharaj (among a host of implicated others) expect the accusers to choke on their own excess and overstatement. The other possibility is the Zuma camp learned during its effective defence against a myriad corruption, bribery and money laundering allegations that if they can hold out long enough the prosecuting authority will eventually be forced to back off – or be replaced by new prosecutors.

“Gold Fields: who is next?” (Business Times) versus “We will not follow split” (Business Report)

The weeklies were full of anxiety about Gold Fields’ unbundling of some of its local assets – and concern that this might be the start of a wave of similar unbundling and ring-fencing. More importantly, the press was unanimous in rejecting Gold Fields’ denial that this was a vote of no-confidence in South Africa: “…it is one of the strongest votes of no-confidence in domestic investment to date. Its share price jumped 7% after Thursday’s announcement …” (Business Times).

Peter Major (Cadiz Corporate Solutions) is quoted in Business Report as saying “Soon shareholders will tell companies like AngloGold, Ashanti and Harmony Gold that if they don’t unbundle they’ll sell their interests.”

So What? The Sunday Times ran its main editorial on this issue. Saying it is clear why Gold Fields has done what it has done. “The company’s output dropped by 11% in the third quarter as the strikes took their toll. Its managers have been buffeted by unrest, uncertainty and the ever-shifting sands of policy pronouncements. On the horizon is some form of nationalisation of ‘strategic’ resources and more labour unrest as the government fails to lead the country back to the sanity of proper collective bargaining.” We can’t really fault that, although Gold Fields may have had a host of others issues to consider when it made the decision it did.

Changing the guard

The deaths of two respected South Africans who played important roles in the transition away from apartheid and towards democracy continue to raise anxiety about other impending deaths of great South African leaders and about the quality of the incumbent crew. Professor Jakes Gerwel (18 Jan 1946- 28 Nov 2012), Nelson Mandela’s first Director General (among a myriad other achievements) and Arthur Chaskelson (24 Nov 1931-1 Dec 2012) former Chief Justice and architect of much of the South Africa’s judicial system were mourned in all of the weeklies.

So what? Nelson Mandela appointed both of these men to play the crucial roles they did in the young South African democracy in the mid-1990s. It is inevitable that the popular press will hold leaders like these up against the individuals and processes overwhelming the ANC and government as we write this. As Nelson Mandela’s death moves ever closer, the anxiety about the Nkandla improprieties and the violence in the ANC’s internal contests in the lead-up to Mangaung are held up to a (perhaps) mythical standard of the past. The comparisons, fair or not, sentimental or realistic, makes the tone of much of the news and commentary in the weeklies angry, fearful and condemnatory.

The massacre at Marikana

I comment on, and interpret,  incidents like the shooting by police of at least 35 strikers at Marikana yesterday.

Even as the gunfire fell silent the price of Lonmin shares fell and the price of platinum spiked in response to supply concerns.

It’s what I do for a living – the people that pay my bills are paying for information or interpretation that might have an impact on the value of things they own, might sell and/or might buy in the future.

What I say to them is a tiny part of the universe of facts and opinions that these individuals and institutions consider when making investment decision to make money and/or prevent losses for the owners of the funds under their care.

But when I had finished my cursory analysis and sent it out – by 05h30 this morning – I busied myself with the difficult business of waking my children and preparing them for the school day.

At some point I shouted across the room for the younger one to switch the channel from Phineas and Ferb to eNews so I could catch the latest from Marikana.

The timing was perfect. We all watched as a line of flack-jacketed, SWAT-style policemen advanced. Suddenly a group of tatty men stormed around an object … a car perhaps … towards the police.

The police opened fire, rifles on full automatic, and the men running towards them simply collapsed in the exploding dust, loose limbed, their ragged bodies sprawling.

A voice, a white Afrikaans voice – but I am not sure why that is significant aside from the fact that no-one I could see amongst the police or the protesters was white – shouted repeatedly: “cease fire, cease fire, cease fire”.

I was horrified. I looked towards my 12 year old son. His mouth was frozen wide open, his face a study of incomprehension.

It was over too quickly for me to do anything about it … I was, frankly, too shocked myself to ameliorate or in some way decode what we had seen.

Sometimes it’s not the facts that count, but how we line them up:

The massacre yesterday has no precedent in the new South Africa.

The precedents are all in the bad old days, when the National Party’s security establishment fired on those taking to the streets and threatening the political elite of the day.

Throughout the platinum sector there is militant and growing opposition to the hegemony of National Union of Mineworkers (Num).

Num has drifted towards representing white-collar workers – the traditional terrain of Solidarity and Uasa.

Num is the backbone of Cosatu’s support for the ANC and that union is also a key pillar of support for Jacob Zuma’s re-election at Mangaung.

It doesn’t matter how ‘true’ the implicit story implicating the political elite in this particular incident is.

It’s clear the workers on the hill were armed. They fired at police. And at a helicopter.

Who can blame the command structure for arming the officers with automatic weapons in this environment?

Can you imagine how scared – and angry – the individual members of the force were as the panga and iron bar carrying strikers rushed towards them?

But those facts are not going to be important over the next few weeks and months.

What’s going to matter is that Num has successfully been portrayed as a sweetheart union, increasingly concerned with white-collar workers, and increasingly comfortably with the benefits that come from being romanced by management.

It is going to matter that Zuma-supporting Num appears to have abandoned the least sophisticated workers – workers that use muti from sangomas to protect themselves from police bullets – to a violent, millennial-style organisation like Amcu.

This is what I Here are a few paragraphs from the conclusion of what I said to my clients this morning:

• It appears to me that this is the prism through which the public and the press is likely to understand what happened yesterday. In this narrative Jacob Zuma will be portrayed as the villain, presiding over the gradual abandonment by the ANC of the most marginalised and vulnerable citizens. When political formations inevitably emerge to give voice to those disaffected groups, policemen armed for war will be ordered to use all necessary force to defend the support base of the incumbent political elite.
• Expect anxiety about the breakdown of the political and social mechanisms that have traditionally allowed our society to negotiate the complicated disagreements and clashes of interest with which it is beset.
• Finally, this incident is likely to be used against Jacob Zuma in the run-up to the political contest at Mangaung. It might not be strictly fair, but the narrative is compelling, and Zuma’s enemies and competitors will make everything they can of his vulnerability here.

There is little I can say of any use to the child with whom I watched the visuals on eNews.

Malema: a stick being used to beat Zuma? Just a thought …

I am sure no-one has failed to notice the flood of South African high achievers passing through the United Kingdom over the last week or so.

A golfer was there recently, some swimmers,  a group of cricketers … and, oh yes, Julius Malema.

Julius told BBC and Sky News that he was in London working hard and meeting investors behind closed doors – to explain the ‘economic freedom campaign’ – and to give nuances on the nationalisation call.

He – charmingly – defended the racial make-up of the South African Olympic team: “we are proud of our athletes”, he said; and he came clean on his support for Kgalema Motlanthe to succeed Jacob Zuma at Mangaung in December.

This is his Mangaung prediction:

“I am coming back to the ANC in December; once we have removed president Jacob Zuma – because we are going to remove him successfully in December … and then I will walk into that conference, shake his hand and proceed to occupy my rightful seat.” (Catch that BBC clip here.)

It is difficult not to admire the audacity … and delight in the anxiety that those who conducted the Polokwane Putsch must be feeling.

But to my mind things swerve away from the comic and towards the dark when I think about this a little more.

It is a series of small things that worry me.

Surprise! (From New Zimbabwe, August 1 2012)

He pitched up at the Chingford Rugby Club and joined a group of Zimbabweans for a braai – and was apparently welcomed with open arms. He dined with Lenox Lewis

With Lenox Lewis in London – (from New Zimbabwe August 1 2012)

and spoke to a group called the Pan African Congress (not our PAC – but it has some similarities) and was covered in a spooky online journal called The Zimdiaspora  under the headline “We are inspired by Mugabe – Malema” as follows:

Turning to … Zimbabwe and its politics of land and mineral wealth redistribution, Malema had glowing praise for the president of Zimbabwe Robert Gabriel Mugabe for confiscating land from the whites and giving it to blacks. He stated they found inspiration from the actions of Mugabe as an African leader and were grateful to see him standing up against whites and their economic enslavement of blacks.

Glowing praise for president of Zimbabwe Robert Gabriel Mugabe? Sounds like a writer constrained by the diktats of belonging to a government department, something like, say … hmm … the Zimbabwe Central Intelligence Organisation?

What would covert aspects of the Zimbabwean state get from promoting the increasingly virulently, anti-Zuma Malema in London ? (I am not unaware that there is a wild leap in that last sentence … but still am going to just take it and move along.)

It’s a tenuous link but my nose is twitching: Zanu-PF’s preparation to hold off the MDC challenge is multifaceted and very sophisticated. A significant part of the pressure on Zanu-PF to meet its obligations under the Global Political Agreement and move towards democratic elections is coming from the SADC facilitation under the leadership of Jacob Zuma.

The next Zimbabwean election is going to be won or lost on the precise wording of the laws and constitution that set the conditions for elections – including how the security apparatuses will be controlled.

That wording is being finalised as I write this …. as Julius Malema takes his campaign against Zuma to the world stage, during the Olympics … no expenses spared.

I realise I have to be cautious; it is not as if the Malema ANC Youth League faction is not brilliant at self-promotion and has an almost preternatural ability to play into the current media obsessions.

Malema was quoted in the Zimbabwe Sunday Mail in June saying that Jacob Zuma was not the right person to be the SADC mediator in Zimbabwe because ‘he hates Robert Mugabe.’

I think that the possibility that Malema is acting as an asset for a (partially) hostile foreign power will play against him in the ANC’s internecine strife … or at least his enemies will try and make that case to his detriment. (Note added on 03/08/2012: I am not suggesting that there is necessarily any intention on Malema’s part … the point is rather that in effect he might be fulfilling Bob’s/Zanu-PF’s agenda as opposed to ‘the national interest’ as embodied – supposedly – by the South African president … or even more narrowly that the possibility of this being true will probably been used against Malema by the incumbents he is campaigning against.)

We must guard against paranoia and the instinct to see everything we can’t quite explain as evidence of the hidden hand of spies, aliens or the Elders of Zion – but equally we would have to be very naive to believe that the hundreds of billions of real dollars spent each years on espionage and dirty tricks just disappears into the ether, leaving no imprint on the world.

The Second Transition

Occasionally I publish slides from a current presentation series and here are a few from something I am busy with called: “The Second Transition – SA politics and policy somewhere twixt hither and yon”.

The general idea is the ANC government is determined to move beyond the ‘transitional’ arrangements that it agreed to in 1994 and strike out boldly towards some undefined, but more profoundly transformed future.

I start with a quote from Jeff Radebe at the launch of the ANC discussion documents in early March … which sets the atmosphere of the ANC proposals.

Then, taking some liberties, I summarise what the ANC is “really” (in my humble opinion) saying in motivating the documents:

I then set out on the difficult task of attempting to assess whether the ANC documents actually propose anything as thoroughgoing as the initial motivation implies.

Frankly, the answer is “no”; although the proposals are both worrying in tone and in how contradictory and “bitty” they are.

The best formulated document is the “Maximizing the Developmental Impact of the People’s Mineral Asset: State Intervention in the Minerals Sector (SIMS) – document (get a link to that here). It contains a thoroughgoing set of proposals that change the tax system for mining and propose a complicated set of upstream, downstream and sideways linkages for the industry that will create a new set of burdens and obligations (not all bad) for the mine owners. (My own feeling about mineral resources is that these are “non-renewables” and government is obliged to get the maximum developmental benefit out of them before they are lost forever – but that is just by the way.)

Almost every other document – and there are 12 in  all – meanders between

• being meaningless wish-lists,
• statist and authoritarian  blueprints to bully and control and
• well researched and argued guides to fixing key aspects of what is wrong with our society

Almost all the good stuff is lifted body and soul from the meticulously researched National Development Plan with its focus on the 9 challenges of

• widespread unemployment
• ailing infrastructure
• low standards of education
• exclusion of the poor from mainstream development
• a resource dependent economy
• a failing public health system with a large disease burden
• inept public service provision
• widespread corruption and
• societal divisions.

My presentation itself does not make strong predictions on how far the ANC will get with its deliberations … although what is clear is that policy discussion this whole year will be drowned out by the Mangaung election noise. It is is going to be difficult to ascertain any real direction through the clamour of the struggle to re-elect Jacob Zuma.

Leaving aside all the slides that deal with the actual documents, I do, however conclude by asking some questions of our key players … and I include those slides here for your interest:

As the months go by, I will hopefully have time to flesh out some of those question.

But for now I am in the final days of the road show trying to make sense of  the mess of proposals and hints in the documents, which span issues as diverse as fracking the Karoo, IDZ’s to SEZ’s, the Treasury versus EDD versus DTI, local procurement fantasies, some excellent fixes of BEE from Rob Davies,  the lonely excellence of the Gordhan and Marcus and infrastructure looking more and more like the ANC’s one-trick-pony.

What could derail Jacob Zuma at this late hour?

Well it is certainly not Julius.

Last night his expulsion from the ANC and the ANC Youth League was confirmed by the ruling party’s national disciplinary committee.

His ‘fixer’, secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, was suspended for a year – making any attempt to ‘rule-by-wire’ difficult. The appeals committee chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa also confirmed the three-year suspension of the other key Malema ally,  Floyd Shivambu.

Malema is out of the game and I don’t expect to hear much from his traditional defenders, Tokyo Sexwale, Thandi Modise, Mathews Phosa, Fikile Mbalula, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Tony Yengeni. They are going to be exploring other strategies … more about that below.

Malema has been sunk by a combination of his own hubris and of bad luck. He might still be greeted like a rock star by striking Numsa workers, but he just doesn’t have the gravitas to coalesce a radical alternative to the ANC around himself.

I expect he is going to be busy trying to keep himself out of prison on tax evasion and corruption charges for the next several years. It’s a stitch-up, but he has made so many mistakes that it has been a relatively easy one.

The strategy of his core group is going to have to be to make as much noise in the lead-up to Mangaung as possible. They are good at this, earning their colours in the trashing of Mbeki in the lead-up to Polokwane. But that time around they were coached and backed by Zuma and his cronies and by the SACP and Cosatu … which makes the Nkandla Crew’s huffy outrage at his conduct a little difficult to swallow … this time Malema and friends are on their own and their backs are to the wall. I cannot see them achieving a momentum that could realistically effect the outcome of the Mangaung contest.

So what could threaten Zuma?

The word on the street is that with KZN and the Eastern Cape wrapped up Zuma is unassailable going into Mangaung.

But Mangaung is a long way away and the street is not always right. Our TV screens have been resplendent with the big-boned ladies cutting Zuma cakes and singing Zuma songs – but in our parochial soap opera version of Götterdämmerung the chubbier maiden hasn’t even started singing.  (Here is a discussion of  ”it aint over till the fat lady sings”.)

I have assumed that the main threat to Zuma’s relection at Mangaung is the unlikely possibility of the National Prosecuting Authority reinstituting fraud and corruption charges against him.

This remains a threat, but a more serious and immediate one seems to be emerging around what appears to have been a widespread sacking by Zuma’s security chiefs of at least one secret fund allocated for clandestine anti-crime operations.

The tip of this iceberg is the accusation that crime intelligence boss and apparent Zuma ally Richard Mdluli had his children, wife and girl-friends listed as agents to be paid out of the fund.

The next layer of the iceberg sloshing at sea level is the accusation that police minister Nathi Mthethwa used the fund to pay for aspects of the renovation of his country home.

Below the surface is a looming mass of allegations that many, perhaps most, of the ANC security commissars – the closest of Zuma’s allies –  have been using this and similar funds as automatic teller machines.

It is the fact that Richard Mdluli has been reinstated – despite these serious corruption allegations and even more serious allegations that he murdered a love rival – that rings the really big red alarm bells. I think Jeremy Gordin hinted the loudest and the most eloquently that it is definitely worth considering that the protection is coming from the very top and must be motivated by the possibility that Mdluli has the goods on Zuma  … catch that story here.

There is no successful drawing of a link from this scandal directly to Zuma, but if I look at the renovation of his house and the character of the empire he is building in Nkandla I must wonder whether the proceeds of the looting of this intelligence fund – and of a host of other stores of cash dotted about the security establishment -  have flowed upwards and if they have, how high?

If Zuma is derailed – and I have this as a “Black Swan” possibility only* –  Kgalema Motlanthe is waiting in the wings. I am under the impression that the Motlanthe alternative is being deliberately kept alive and viable because of the real risks of the main candidate drowning in his own sleaze.

Of course there have been consistent attempts to flick dirt in the general direction of Motlanthe – and some of it has stuck … and some of that for good reason. He was central to efforts to secure oil allocations from Saddam Hussein for ANC donor Sandi Majali and ‘has never fully answered questions about his role in the Iraq/UN oil-for-food scandal as well as the Pamodzi loans,  hoax emails and Bell Helicopter parts for Iran scandals/disputes’. There is a useful ‘dusting off the alternative’ article on Motlanthe in last week’s Mail and Guardian … catch that here.

(Note: I realise from the comments section below that it is possible to think that I am suggesting that the transmission mechanism by which such a corruption crisis could bring down Zuma is via a court case. That is not what I meant .. anyway that would take too long to play out to impact upon the process. Such a crisis could bring Zuma down by motivating a broad coalition of groups and individuals within the ANC – specifically those who have been backing Motlanthe, but with new anti-corruption allies … and ANC patriots desperate to save their organisation  - to choose the alternative. I think there is much militating against this outcome, but I discuss that below.)

Julius ahead?

A Motlanthe alternative would be unlikely to risk its own credibility by treating Malema any differently from how he has been treated by the ANC disciplinary process.

The final line of appeal is to the National Executive Committee of the ANC – but there Malema’s potential allies need to concentrate on battles they can win … not on hopeless causes.

Looking towards a further horizon, perhaps 10 or 20 years on, no-one should be surprised to see Julius Malema – older, wiser and more dangerous – back in the game. His instinctive feel for the tactics of political mobilisation are unparalleled – it is his grasp of strategy and principle that have let him down this time around.

But for now the game moves on and our attention needs to shift away from the activities of those who wish the President harm and onto the harm he might do/have done to himself.

* A “Black Swan Event” is a metaphor developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan and refers to events with a disproportionately high-impact which are both hard-to-predict and rare.

African National Congress chasing its tail … and biting it

This is a screenshot from the front page of the ANC’s website accessed early this morning:

It’s those latest press statements I am interested in.

That’s the last five major releases from the Ruling Party, every one of which is exclusively concerned with the vicious battle taking place within the organisation.

Working backwards:

April 4 – Comrade Julius Malema’s immediate suspension pending Disciplinary Proceedings

This statement records the National Disciplinary Committee’s decision to suspend Malema immediately after he said “….It is under President Zuma that we have seen the youth of the ANC being traumatised, being expelled from their own home. It is under President Zuma we have seen a critical voice being suppressed We have seen under President Zuma, democracy being replaced with dictatorship.”

The statement further spells out in detail Malema’s exclusion from any and all structure related to the ANC and forbids him to make statements pertaining to the organisation.

April 5 – ANC statement on The Star newspaper article

This is a slightly confusing (partly because I don’t have access to the report it is criticising) attack on The Star for publishing an article alleging tension among members of the ANC top six over appropriate action to take against Malema and the Youth League. It concerns who met who, when and with what intention – and the statement is a disavowal of the allegation that Thandi Modise and Mathews Phosa were at odds with Gwede Mantashe over severity of action to take against the ANC Youth League.

April 12 – NDCA statement on appeal hearing

This one is purely an announcement by Cyril Ramaphosa in his capacity as head of the National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal that the application to postpone the appeal hearing of Julius Malema, Sindiso Magaqa and Floyd Shivambu had been turned down.

April 15 – ANC statement on the decision of the ANCYL NEC

This one is a strongly worded attack on the NEC of the ANCYL which that morning had decided to ignore the suspension of Julius Malema. “We would like to advise the ANCYL NEC that regrettably their decision to undermine and defy the decision of the NDC effectively defines the organisation outside of the ANC Constitutional parameters.”

April 16 – The ANC statement on Floyd Shivambu Article

Which brings us to yesterday: “The African National Congress is appalled at the crude, uncouth, disrespectful and insulting attack on Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa by Floyd Shivambu in the weekend newspapers” said Jackson Mthembu.

***

This is the moment that a parent attempting to make sense of a group of angry children crying well he started it! … well he threw my dolly over the wall! … screams: ENOUGH – GO TO YOUR ROOM – ALL OF YOU – RIGHT NOW!

I suppose many citizens have been begging the ANC to clean its shop .. and in particular to close down the threatening thuggery in the ANCYL.

But I can’t help worrying that the only reason the leadership has acted is factional, and concerned with the power struggle leading up to Mangaung … and if its motivations are suspect, how it actually deals with the problem might leave things worse off than they were previously.

I, for one, will be watching with interest whether the ANC Youth League will attempt some form of mass mobilisation to put pressure on the processes of regional conferences mandating delegates towards Mangaung … and perhaps earlier at the June policy conference.

I am unsure of the League’s capacity. I suspect they are all wind and bluster … and that the central leadership of the mother body will keep them divided by offering inducements to elements less strongly tied to Malema and his cronies.

But they (the leaders of ANCYL) are clearly going to give it a whirl – which will make the next few months more interesting than they were going to be already.

There is a part of me that is delighted this ANC leadership is getting its comeuppance – through harvesting what it sowed in the lead-up to Polokwane.

But there is another part that is sickened by the spectacle of the crazed old dog madly chasing its tail and occasionally yelping in pain as it manages to get in a nip and tear out tufts of fur and bits of skin from its bleeding body.

The ANC as a proxy for the nation?

It’s tempting to focus on the ANC as if its history and prospects are a proxy for the history and prospects of the country as a whole.

The party’s centenary celebrations this week will strengthen the sense that this is indeed the case.

The last hundred years of South African history has been about the formal subjugation of the black inhabitants of the country by European colonial powers and settler groups; the fight for national liberation and self-determination; the victory and then seventeen years of the complex process of democratic rule.

Running like a spine through that body of history is the African National Congress -  which not without some legitimacy claims to be the organised expression of black people’s struggle to be free of colonial and then apartheid oppression and exclusion.

Then in the same way that the back bone’s connected to the … neck bone it follows naturally that post-1994, given the ANC’s overwhelming dominance at the polls, the party can legitimately be seen as the ongoing expression of black South African’s attempts to govern themselves and use the state to redress the inequalities and distortions caused by that apartheid and colonial past.

So this week the ANC celebrates its 100th anniversary, kicking off with a centenary golf day (for only the luckiest of revellers) and including gala dinners, interdenominational church services and culminating in a public rally in Bloemfontein (Mangaung) on Sunday January 8.

The sense that the ANC is a proxy for the country itself is strengthened by the fact that this year will culminate in and ANC national conference electing a leadership that will, almost automatically, become the leadership of government after the general elections in 2014 – again, given the ANC’s electoral dominance.

Additionally an ANC policy conference in July will pronounce upon a range of  matters concerning the role of the state in the economy and it promises to make policy on (amongst other matters) the nationalisation of mines and the expropriation of white owned farm land – with or without compensation.

But hang on a moment …

One of the key tasks of political parties in their struggle to become or remain the party of government is to present their agenda as identical to the national agenda, their leadership as automatically the national leadership and their interests identical to the national interest.

The ANC can legitimately point to how central it is to South Africa’s political and cultural life, but as we wilter this week under the the searing overstatement of that message it is useful to bring a few proviso’s to the front of mind.

We are a country with a small, open economy nestled in the most depressed region of a world overwhelmingly interconnected and subject to monumental forces that grind their way irresistibly through the Ozymandian vanities of governments significantly more powerful than ours.

The more we learn about the world and the history of human societies the more apparent it is that we have been hopelessly overoptimistic about our ability to understand let alone predict how the complex systems of our economies, national entities, ecological systems and cities function, evolve, collapse and change.

I am sure that this week newspapers will be full of huffy assertions that the ANC does not represent “the nation” and therefore treating its centenary as if it was a sacred ritual akin to Fourth of July in the United States (which celebrates independence from Great Britain in 1776) is a travesty.

Quite right too. The ANC has diverted significant national resources to traditional US style pork belly politics  but has also made itself guilty of more overt Angolan style looting. All that combines to makes its claim to represent the “national interest” an insulting insinuation about “the nation”.

Also new political forces are emerging and growing – most obviously Cosatu and the Democratic Alliance – that will further erode such ANC claims in future – as will the shifting ethnic bases of parties and groups that contest in the political arena of South Africa.

However, these were not the points I wanted to make – and I am sure they are going to be done to death in the next few days.

My point is that sovereignty itself – and certainly who the ANC elects as leaders and what the party decides vis-a-vis nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land without compensation – will have much less force and effect in determining South Africa’s political and economic future that we might imagine.

Economic policy, laws governing ownership and general “good behaviour” around fiscal and monetary policy are rigidly constrained both by the discipline of global capital markets and by a myriad bilateral and multilateral agreements between countries and blocks of countries.

As I said to clients earlier this week (concerning the ANC centenary):

“Obviously we must continue to watch the ANC as carefully as always in 2012 – but this small open country and economy will continue to be tossed on the currents of the global economy and the various geopolitical, technological, cultural and environmental forces that shape the world. We might miss a trick or two if we lull ourselves into believing the myth that the ANC is a kind of metaphor for the country as a whole.

Going into the dark

The previous post was headlined “The ANC’s surprising return to form” and it stayed as the face of this website throughout a week in which we were reminded of the nest of corruption our president emerged from.

… oh yes, and a week when the ANC in parliament passed the Protection of Information Bill – with sneaky abstentions from three of their MPs. (Gloria Borman actually abstained, Ben Turok walked out and Salam Abram said he would have abstained if he could have made it to the sitting.)

… and a lot else has gone wrong such that it is difficult to even pierce the gloom.

Many of these issues have been done to death, but briefly on Mac Maharaj:

The Mail&Guardian weekly newspaper and the Sunday Times (and now City Press) revealed different pieces of evidence that appear to prove that French arms company Thales channeled money to Mac Maharaj, then Minister of Transport (also, crucially, architect of Zuma’s rise and key strategist behind Zuma government) a few months before Thales was awarded a credit card licence tender (worth about R265 million) by Maharaj’s department in 1996.

The more revealing points are that the alleged middleman, Zuma’s financial advisor Shabir Shaik, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for, amongst other things, securing a bribe from Thales for Jacob Zuma’s protection in the arms deal. Thales country manager Alain Thetard allegedly signed or originated both the agreement that channeled money to Maharaj through his wife Zarina as well as the encrypted fax spelling out the payment for Zuma and the protections and advocacy those payments were for.

The issue is Zuma only avoided prosecution for corruption and racketeering because it was shown that there was political meddling in the prosecution – not because there was not a prima facie case for him to answer (his financial advisor went to prison for securing the bribe for his boss … you don’t get more prima facie than that!)

The leaking of the evidence is undoubtedly linked to the conflict between Zuma and the faction of which Julius Malema is a part. In fact the Youth League has made it clear that it plans to raise issues associated with Zuma’s sexual conduct as well as the fact that his (Zuma’s) friends and family have benefited financially (and overwhelmingly) from his presidency. Some of Malema’s key backers were insiders to the arms deal scandal and it would have been an easy matter for evidence against Mac and Zuma to emerge from some of those quarters.

At the very least the accusation (and reminder) that the Zuma presidency is deeply tainted by this history will hurt his  re-election bid at Mangaung.

… while the ANC itches to get more fingers on the economy

Late last week it emerged that there are proposals to tax ‘unbeneficiated’ mineral exports and to force the South African fund management industry to own a specific amount of government and SOE bonds in ‘draft of draft’ reports from the ANC Economic Transformation Committee – that were due to be discussed by the ANC NEC this weekend.

Both Bloomberg and Reuters have got hold of these, but the ‘final drafts’ take a less prescriptive approach, according to committee chair and key ANC economic policy strategist (and deputy minister Economic Development) Enoch Godongwana.

The ANC aches to get its hands on the IDC’s Public Investment Corporation’s investment power – especially as assets under management (mostly public sector pensions) topped the 1 trillion Rand mark in March.

The prescribed assets idea and strategies to force beneficiation – all in the service of the jobs drive – have been on the fringes of government thinking for years and are flirted with in much of the motivation that led to the NGP.

I don’t think these proposals will ever be legislated in this form.

A pre-Mangaung policy conference (in May according to the Business Day and June according to Bloomberg/Reuters) will make recommendations but the decision will only be made in December 2012.

The ‘nationalisation of mines’ draft proposal was also expected to be delivered to the NEC this weekend. I haven’t seen it or read any reports about it, but I expect a shift in the tax regime, a tightening up of the Charter and a plan to strengthen the African Mining Exploration and Finance Company (AEMFC) – which is the much vaunted “state owned mining company”. Together these fall well short of the ANCYL nationalisation proposals, but still weaken the investment case for the industry as a whole.

(Note, that these ideas proposed by think-tanks within the ruling party are essentially grappling with ways to make the economy more supportive of the transformation project. The problem, though, is one of trust. Giving this ANC is led by the kind of people named in the first few paragraphs of this post, more control over central aspects of our lives feels stupid. I just don’t trust them any more.)

… meanwhile

… Cabinet approved the publication of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act Amendment Bill that plans to fine companies up to 10% of revenues for ‘fronting’- and allows for companies to lose points on one part of the balanced scorecard for failure to achieve targets on another.

This is the first major attempt to give B-BBEE serious teeth (outside of mining licensing where the legislative and regulatory teeth are already pretty sharp.)

My own feeling is that resources for ‘deracialising’ the SA economy are limited; cheating is a problem, but the fact that the process is too often indistinguishable from a bribe of the political class is the bigger failing the new amendments ignore.

There’s my happy little corrective for an early Monday morning.

Game of Thrones in the ANC

A good friend of mine in New York* recently put me on to “A Song of Ice and Fire” – a seemingly endless series of swords and sorcery novels by George R R Martin.

This is the crack cocaine of fantasy fiction but it is also a surprisingly brilliant study of politics and power vacuums.

The fictional edifice of the “Song of Ice and Fire” is built around the consequences of the death of a powerful king. In the aftermath the kingdom collapses into factional chaos, pretenders to the throne contest for power and war rages across the land.

Scheming power-brokers manipulate and assassinate their way through the dysfunctional court as provincial lords and petty “hedge nights” ransack, pillage and rape “the small folk” all across the Seven Kingdoms.

What an excellent metaphor.

The demise of Thabo Mbeki at Polokwane in December 2007 and the political cycle towards Mangaung in December 2012 is our own Song of Ice and Fire and the intrigue and viciousness in the ANC’s internal struggle feels like it is being run by the Lady of Casterly Rock, Cersei Lannister – but you will have to read the books to fully understand how apt and awful that comparison is.

Two weeks ago the increasingly excellent City Press published the following schematic of what it sees as the individuals in the main factions contesting for power at Mangaung (using Malema as the proxy for the broader conflict):

(see at the end of the story for my optional key to that graphic)

One of the problems with factional battles like this one is that it is not always possible for the participants to choose which side they are on – or, in fact, whether to be on any side at all.

As the powerful interests clash in the Ruling Alliance there can be no ‘innocent bystanders’ or anyone above the fray. A factional dispute like this one is a bit like the Cold War used to be. It imposes itself upon the whole structure; every forum, every election and every policy debate gets forced into the dominant paradigm  of the overall contest for power.

One of the dangers – with this analysis and with the more general struggle – is that it is increasingly difficult to work out what each side stands for and how they might differ from each other.

When we use Julius Malema’s friends and foes as the proxy for the broader struggle it is easy to portray the challengers as the most voracious faction, fighting for the right to loot the state and dominate patronage networks. The problem is that the incumbents, certainly Jacob Zuma himself, can hardly be portrayed as the good and brave king to Malema’s dastardly evil knight.

There are shades of grey here that we are going to need to have a more subtle sense of as we get closer to whatever compromises might emerge at Mangaung.

It’s best not to act as a cheerleader for any one faction or part of a faction in a struggle as complex as the one unfolding within the Ruling Alliance. And while today’s heroes can be tomorrows villains and vice versa I would still use Julius Malema’s friends and foes as a rough guide to who the most dangerous enemies of our democracy are. Malema himself is a bit player, just the most visible aspect of a fight that is much deeper and more involved than his personal future. But he’s a useful proxy, nonetheless.

One of the pay-off line from A Song of Ice and Fire is a phrase that is the perfect warning to give the players in the ANC’s internal conflict:

‘In this Game of Thrones you win or you die.”

But George RR Martin has another device that he keeps repeating, threateningly, as the lords and knights struggle and murder each other for the throne.

“Winter is coming”, he keeps warning, constantly reminding the reader and his characters that there are much greater threats than the outcome of their brutal squabbles.

Winter is coming.

* That’s Tony Karon, editor at Time Online and expert on all things Middle East. He tells me he has also, several times, used metaphors from A Song of Ice and Fire, including: “Goldman-Sachs are like the Lannisters — no matter who’s on the throne, they’re always on the Small Council.”)

(My schematic key to the graphic – not required reading, and a little bit cobbled together: the friends are Mathews Phosa,  ANC treasurer general and  previous premier of Mpumalanga, one of the ANC’s top six, National Working Committee (NWC) member and a member of the 81 person National Executive Committee (NEC); Fikile Mbalula, previous ANC Youth League president, currently a head of campaigns in the ANC as well as minister of sport in government – highly effective in both positions he is being pushed by this faction to replace Gwede Mantashe as ANC secretary general – on the NWC and NEC;  Tony Yengeni, fraud convict and ex-ANC speaker of parliament (during which time he was caught defrauding parliament by accepting a discount on a luxury car during the tendering process for the arms deal while he was the member of a parliamentary committee reporting on the same deal), ex-member of the ANC underground, tortured by Apartheid police agents in the late 80’s. He is on the ANC National Executive Committee and on the National Working Committee; Winnie Madikizela-Mandela convicted fraudster, wicked step-mother of the nation, she who famously said “with our boxes of matches and necklaces we will free our country”, prime ANC populist who was married to Nelson Mandela and struggled bravely while he was imprisoned, but later accused of several human rights abuses …. and has taken every opportunity to identify herself with Julius Malema and his various calls for nationalisation and expropriation of “white owned” property. On the NEC and generally still influential and symbolically powerful as any member of the ruling party; Siphiwe Nyanda chief of staff of ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe and later head of South African National Defence Force (in which capacity he was regularly accused of being a significant recipient of some of the billions paid in arms deal bribes) and lately minister of telecommunications from which he was fired by Jacob Zuma during an avalanche of accusations that he had illegally enriched himself by getting R55m tenders from Transnet for his security company (GNS or General Nyanda Security) – also eviscerated by the media for his extremely expensive habits and choice of vehicles as a minister – on ANC NEC and NWC; Tokyo Sexwale, has long been thought to be the power behind the Malema challenge, although little evidence had been presented to prove this – and he was recently reported as referring to Malema as “that loud mouthed young man” – he was a popular premier of Gauteng when the fell foul of Thabo Mbeki machinations in the late 90’s, he withdrew from politics and became a successful business man – now reported to be extremely wealthy (through the company he founded, Mvelaphanda Holdings) – he has returned to politics and threw his hat into the ring in the lead-up to Polokwane in 2007 indicating that he would be prepared to take the ANC presidency if he was so nominated and elected. Instead Jacob Zuma became president and ended up appointing Tokyo as Minister of Human Settlements – a difficult position in which he has appeared to perform adequately – his wealth makes his election to the ANC top spot a difficult road …. but his determination and deep pockets make him a serious challenger; Cassel Mathale, premier of Limpopo and the closest of close allies (business and politics) to Julius Malema – the Limpopo province is beset by very high levels of cronyism and tender abuse by senior ANC politicians …..; Nomvula Mokonyane – surprised to see her on the list, premier of Gauteng and former housing minister – she has conflicted with another very powerful player Paul Mashetile (ANC Chair in Gauteng) who I would have thought was closer to Malema that she – she is on the NEC (ex-officio, which means she wasn’t elected there);  Baleka Mbete, ANC Chairperson, NEC and NWC – powerful … conflicted with Zuma and Motlanthe over whether she could keep the Deputy President post she help under Kgalema Mothlathe’s caretaker presidency – which put her in conflict with the Zuma camp at the start of his government in 2008; Sindiso Magaqa Secretary General of ANC YL and powerful Malema henchman.

And foes: Jeremy Cronin; key ANC intellectual and deputy secretary general of South African Communist Party (SACP) – as well as effective deputy minister of Transport – he has been the main intellectual opposition to Malema taking him on around mine nationalisation (accusing him of dishonestly fronting BEE interests and being interested in plunder) and on his general populist politics which Cronin and the SACP characterise as racially chauvinistic and even “proto-Fascist” comparing Malema arc explicitly to Germany in the 1930’s on the ANC NEC; Gwede Mantashe powerful ANC secretary general who also holds the position of SACP Chairman – he is one of the main targets of the Malema fronted faction as a leading voice against cronyism in the ANC – the push from the right is to replace him with Fikile Mbalula who is probably the best organiser of the opposition – Mantashe is gruff and famously speaks his mind, a characteristic that has put him in conflict with the most voracious cronies – in the ANC and the trade union movement – NEC and NWC …; Malusi Gigaba – ex-President of the ANC Youth League, but now adequate minister of Public Enterprises (but not about to shoot the lights out) in Zuma’s cabinet – gradually assumed to role of being a key defender of Zuma and the incumbents against the Malema battering-ram on the NEC; Blade Nzimande – top Secretary General of SACP and (adequate minister of higher education) – came in for a lot of flack from Cosatu for not focussing on building the SACP as well as for his expensive choice of cars as  Minister,  NEC and NWC; Collins Chabane – key intellectual and minister in the presidency (monitoring and evaluation) – respected ally of Zuma, opposed mine nationalisation – ANC NEC and NWC; Angie Motshekga - minister of basic education (shaping up well) and ANC Women’s League president … denies she recently suggested that one of the solutions to current crisis was dissolution of the ANC Youth League – NEC and NWC; Mathole Motshekga – ANC Chief Whip in parliament (always a powerful position) and law lecturer at Unisa in his spare time. ANC NEC … maybe opposition to Malema thrust is a family affair?; David Mabuza; Mpumalanga premier and ANC chairperson recently accused by ANC Youth League of “interfering” in the Youth League politics i.e. backing Lebogang Maile to replace Malema and the recent ANCYL national conference … a challenge that fizzled – he is on the ANC NEC;  Lindiwe Zulu, senior foreign affairs official previous Ambassador to Brazil, close Zuma confidant and powerful behind the scenes player building his image abroad …. she ran into flak from the ANC YL for appearing to back the MDC in Zimbabwe against ZanuPF. She is also close link with Angola for Zuma. ANC NEC.)

Julius Malema and predicting the future you want

The déjà vu is washing over me like the phantom symptoms of a late winter bout of hypochondria.

I remember the lead-up to Polokwane.

The thuggish crowds outside Jacob Zuma’s court appearances.

The man we had known was in Shaik’s pockets since 1993, he who famously couldn’t keep it in his pants, the rape accused shower-after-baby-oil-sex to fend off HIV/AIDs who had only been doing his Zulu man duty by her, Umshini wami mshini wam …  it was entirely impossible that my ANC would ever allow this man to rise to the venerable chambers previously occupied by heroes of the stature of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela … and kept lukewarm by Mbeki’s occasional visits.

And my paying clients insisting I make a call: will he become president?

Well, say I, Mbeki only appointed him deputy because he needed to fend off the challenge from Winnie a-fate-too-awful-to-be-contemplated-by-the-financial-markets Madikizela-Mandela. He had a certain ethnic appeal, so to speak, in the Inkatha heartlands of Kwazulu-Natal but Mbeki knew no-one would ever seriously propose him as president!

And as I knew, you don’t bet against Thabo Mbeki, the master of palace politics …

… and now here we are again.

The weekend the charges against Malema were announced, SARS, the Public Protector and the Hawks were reportedly deep into investigations of their own.

How could Malema hope to sell himself as a victim just as his lifestyle and his predation on the public purse became the subject of such intense scrutiny?

Can the man whose clothes and accoutrement cost the annual income of any twenty of the youths he hopes to represent … represent them or gain their sympathy?

Yes! I need to shout in my own ear. Yes they can … they have … they will again.

Maybe not this time.

This situation has its own dynamics and there is no point in second guessing what the ANC Disciplinary Committee might decide after it finishes meetings this week – but we mustn’t pretend to ourselves or anyone else that we can tell the future.

Will Malema’s minions brute about the streets wearing 100% Juju t-shirts and threatening to fight to the death for their … leader?

Will this sway the process?

Where is the unswayed process going anyway?

There are only two things I know for sure.

The first is that I do not know what the future holds for Julius Malema. He could be banished from the ANC. His disciplining might  provoke a backlash that conceivably could lead to Zuma’s downfall and to Mangaung being an even more corroding rerun of Polokwane. He might disappear into obscurity in the wasteland that (until very recently) has been politics outside of the ANC. He might spend a few years in the wilderness and return chastened and wiser and work his way back to becoming the coming man.

The second thing I know for sure is that my desire for particular outcomes is a serious barrier to me thinking sensibly about which outcomes are most likely.

I know this is not a great and profound insight – nor am I here on the road to Damascus or any particular destination; intellectual, metaphorical or spiritual.

I do hear the breathless clamour of the prediction and analysis industry prophesying the best and the worst of all possible worlds – depending on the emotional predisposition of their target market.

Predicting the worst is often a mistaken attempt to warn against a particular course of action … it’s a political act and an act of propaganda.

Predicting the best is often a semi-religious act, a sort of shamanistic incantation, willing a particular future into the present.

For me, I admonish myself daily:

It is okay to hope the ANC will rediscover its soul and its leaders their long-lost spines. But hoping for a thing does not make it more probable. No-one knows what is going to happen with Malema. So sit on your hands and wait like the rest of us.

Is this the way the cookie crumbles?

This way:

• The business of government becomes the business of enriching the governors … rather than the business of governing and thereby serving the electorate’s overarching interests?
• The extremely rich rewards to be gained from holding political office cause the party list process – especially in the ANC – to become one of mayhem and murder, endlessly chaotic and contested?
• All classes of South Africans whose interests are inimical to the looting of the state, political patronage, ransacking the parastatals, incompetent government and tenderpreneurial activity of all kinds (the black and white middle classes, the industrial working class and the urban poor who are dependent on service delivery as well as big and small business, which both need a functional state, stable rules and the rule of law)  begin to shift their support to opposition parties, social movements and trade unions?
• In turn this puts pressure on the Ruling Alliance as Cosatu and ANC democrats start pushing against the tide.
• The ANC withdraws into governing through systems of patronage and razzmatazz populism as its class base shifts to the rural poor, unemployed urban youth, the state sector and the political/economic  elite and fast-and- loose forms of international capital and organised criminals (the last two categories are experts in dealing with this kind of politics)?

I think this is the way the cookie crumbles. With the proviso that no-one knows the future – and it is always more unexpected than not -  and I think the cookie crumbling in the way that I have described means:

• The Democratic Alliance continues to transform its racial profile (in electoral support as well as leadership) and strengthens its support in urban constituencies throughout the country in the May18 national municipal election.
• There is a significant showing in that election by other opposition parties and independents.
• Cosatu begins to plan for the inevitability of either ‘a coup’ within the ANC or a withdrawal from the Ruling Alliance and the establishment of a viable alternative political home.
• The backlash within the ANC after the election will be severe leading to very high levels of contestation before and during the 2012 elective centenary conference.

That’s the way I see it, although I might be wrong.

If I am right, the next few months is the last chance for the ANC to be saved from the future its current leaders are securing for it.

A rescue job will have to reject the Nkandla style patronage networks as well as the ANC YL style technocratic tenderpreneurialism and those who back it. That doesn’t leave much political room for a challenge or much of an internal constituency in which to nestle it – other than on the left.

Just thought I would mention that in passing … I am now so busy with paid work (hurrah!) that “in passing” is the only time I will have for a while.

Chris Hani – and my part in South Africa’s downfall

For a brief time in the late 1980′s I had occasion to spend some time with Chris Hani, then Chief of Staff of the ANC’s uMkhonto we Sizwe and Secretary General of the South African Communist Party.

I was working for the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA) and a meeting between the ANC’s military and the South African Defence Force seemed like a natural extension and deepening of the work IDASA had done in putting the white establishment in contact with the ANC.

I met Chris several times in Lusaka where we prepared the agenda – and then, obviously, at the conference and several times afterwards.

He was an interesting guy – serious, charming and slightly too ready to tell me the story of how he travelled, through the underground, into danger, with Pliny, Virgil  and Shakespeare in his knapsack … I’m not perfectly sure of the actual authors and titles of the classics he carried, but the point was that he mentioned, more than once, that he did so.

I was already aware in those days of the depth of murderous gangsterism that had enveloped Joe Modise’s leadership of MK – a trend and tendency he took with him into Mandela’s first cabinet and helped set the ANC’s elite on the course for the destination it has reached.

Chris was the great hope for cleaning up Modise’s mess and he was also seen as an antidote to Thabo Mbeki’s technocratic shuttle-diplomacy.

I became aware while organising the conference that some ANC strategists were using the opportunity to show Chris Hani was just as charming and able to talk to whites as Mbeki.

I asked him, in my naivety, about the rumours that he and Mbeki were competitors. He convincingly, to my ears, pooh-poohed the idea saying that he and Thabo were like a tag team, each with his own strengths, but united in the identical goal – and further, he claimed, they were good friends as well.

I had no special intelligence to validate (or otherwise) this claim. Perhaps they were. Perhaps they would have been the A-Team of the post Mandela administration, balancing each other’s faults, playing to each other’s strengths. I know it’s unlikely, but it is difficult not to dream of how things might have been.

As it happened Chris was almost disturbingly charming and persuasive at the conference.

We only managed to get ex-SADF and Bantustan leaders as well as a whole lot of shady and not so shady military and arms dealer types on the domestic delegation.

I have reason to suspect that I might have brought the running dogs of the global arms trade along with that delegation and I often shudder at the thought that I might have played a role in helping the global arms corporations bury their deadly wasp eggs deep into the ANC, later to hatch and gorge themselves just carefully enough so that the host stays alive … but I comfort myself with the fact that Joe Modise had long since sold his and the ANC’s soul to the worst and most rapacious branch of global capitalism.

I remember watching Chris holding forth late one night; he stood behind two seated and coyly smiling white men with thick rugby players necks – there is a reason stereotypes are stereotypes! Chris had a hand on each of their shoulders and he was rubbing them as he spoke with languid and swelling rhythms, about the future of non-racialism and shared patriotism that awaited us.

The big white guys were in love; it gleamed out of their teary eyes and Chris had his head back and eyes closed like he was conducting an exorcism.

I don’t know if Chris Hani would have made a difference if he had lived.

Only a precious few have managed to resist the seemingly irresistible pull towards corruption and greed. You watch all of your friends and comrades become part of that system (the same system that laid its eggs in the ANC that would later hatch into the Arms Scandal and worse), the memory of the ideals that drove you become vague … everyone else is doing it, what is the point in me hanging on while they are all busy with the business of securing themselves for life?

It was Tokyo Sexwale who wept beside Chris Hani’s body on 10th April 1993 outside the house in Boksburg. There was something about Chris that reminds me of Tokyo Sexwale (who I do not know personally but seems to exude a similar charisma that makes one think of a suspiciously charming pirate).

Reading Mandy Wiener’s Killing Kebble over the weekend and getting the insight provided by Fikile Mbalula flattening a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in Kebble’s home … Mbalula and his ANC Youth League comrades treating the servants with extreme arrogance, trashing the house like spoiled children … it is difficult not to be filled with a sense of loss and longing.

Mbalula was 9 18 (oops) years old when I sat with Chris Hani in Lusaka planning how best to drive wedges into Apartheid’s army and win any potential enemies to our side.

I don’t know for sure what he would have thought of this thrust to catapult the “new generation” of leadership into power in 2012 – including, horrifyingly, Fikile Mbalula for Secretary General.

But I suspect he would have drawn the line here. The ANC is not yet in the hands of  Mbalula and his cronies – who are so reminiscent of Joe Modise, only slightly more refined.

There have always been heroes in the liberation movement who fought the tendency towards cronyism and rent-seeking abuse. I thought Chris Hani was in the process of becoming one of those when I worked with him in the late 80′s.

Like James Dean and Jesus Christ, Chris Hani’s virtues are frozen as an historical artefact.

There is a part of me that is relieved he will never be tried and found wanting.

(Note: my friend the fabulous artist Isabel Thompson helped organise that conference and my fellow Bruce Springsteen fan and mentor to so many of us Gavin Evans took the pics and posted them on facebook which is where I found them.)