By Udo W. Froese
IN pre-election South Africa today, former Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) Member of Parliament and author, Mike Moendane, showed his true convictions when he compared the colonial-apartheid ‘National Party’ and its exclusive ‘Afrikaaner Broederbond’ with the democratically elected people’s movement, the ‘African National Congress (ANC)’ during a television news and current affairs debate, claiming, colonial-apartheid was much more efficient in its establishment of its discriminatory policies and its rule of the country.
According to Moendane, “It took the colonial-apartheid National Party only twenty years to firmly structure and lead society.”
Referring to the ANC-led government, Moendane said, “After twenty years, governing South Africa remains vague, leaderless and rudderless with little, if any improvement for the majority of the population.”
ANC member and politician, multi-millionaire Matthews Phosa, used the public corporate media platform to attack the ANC and country president, Jacob Zuma, claiming, “Nkandla (Zuma’s private estate in his home province of KwaZulu/Natal) is a bit of a cover-up.”
Phosa attacked the ANC for its ‘rampant corruption in government and inability to take charge’.
The former ANC treasurer and former member of the ANC’s top six, former premier of the Mpumalanga Province and former member of the ANC’s NEC, Matthews Phosa is an ordinary member of the ruling party today.
A reliable, very senior member of the ANC NEC and NWC reminded this columnist: “During the time of his premiership, Mpumalanga Province experienced skyrocketing crime and assassinations of politicians and business people.” According to a respected, senior ANC stalwart, “Phosa corrupted the Limpopo Province’s ANC youth.”
When Matthews Phosa left colonial-apartheid South Africa for exile, he was incarcerated. His comrades did not trust him.
Immediately after the murder of Chris Hani, the late head of intelligence of the ANC, Joe Nhlanhla, appointed Mathews Phosa to head the investigation into the assassination. Phosa worked with advocate George Bizos on this case. Soon after his appointment the former senior politician stopped all further investigations.
“Corrupt people speak like the people on the streets, talking from the top of their heads, remaining politically and historically illiterate and subsequently, opportunistic. It is pre-election time in sunny South Africa and the payroll is doing its rounds again”, a well-known senior struggle stalwart from the ANC’s NEC explained.
Imperialist right-wing colonial-apartheid’s discriminating laws and judiciary, its assistance of developing and then legally protecting structured poverty for the indigenous African majority even beyond its borders, its legalised national plunder of the countries resources and its secret, massive theft of the country’s national tax, demonstrated a culture of reckless plunder, crude disrespect, including torture and murder.
It was very easy to put such strategies up and implement them.
To undo the above evil damage, to re-build a national and regional self-esteem and uplift whole nations takes much more than just drafting policies, ruling with an iron fist, copying and following the likes of De Klerk, Botha, Smith, Mudge and their Christian civilised angels of death and destruction.
Yet, after three hundred years of cruel oppression, imperialist colonial-apartheid-UDI could not eliminate the spirit of the indigenous African people and their hunger to be free from all forms of oppression.
However, the corporate mainstream media with its roots firmly in the same historical background of exclusivity and segregation, happily grant wannabe political “leaders” with no known background or history a public platform to insult the African National Congress and its leadership. At the same time, the person of Jacob Zuma remains in their efforts of discreditation.
It is with impunity that South Africa’s shallow corporate media demonstrates its allegiance with rather dubious politicos, hailing them as “struggle icons.”
The media owners’ hidden agenda of ‘all is fair in the election war’ to undermine the ANC from the inside and the outside shows them up. South Africa’s indigenous African majority however, is not as stupid as the tendentious editors and mischievous armchair academic analysts seem to believe in their campaign for the opposition ‘Democratic Alliance (DA)’ and ‘Agang SA’.
It would be the correct thing to do for the ANC to come out in defence of their president. Genuine revolutionaries would not sit quietly by while their leader is being mauled. In any election campaign, the president of the party is the face of the party. No one else can lead the party and thus, no other member, no matter how senior, but the president would be the face of the contesting party.
In fact, it would be rather strange to the point of unsettling, if the president of the party would be doubted by his own organisation.
However, the Secretary of the ANC in the Gauteng Province, David Makura, proposed recalled President Thabo Mbeki to campaign for the ANC in order to get the vote from the ‘black middleclass’ in the province.
It is an unknown middleclass, which more often than not stands accused of having succumbed to crony capitalism, having long forgotten where they originally came from. This would explain their irrelevance in society.
The ANC Women’s League President, Angie Motshekga, threw her weight behind Makura’s proposal to put up Mbeki to lead the election campaign for the ANC in the Gauteng Province. She is also the Minister for Basic Education in Zuma’s cabinet.
It means, that the short-term history of as recent as the ANC Limpopo Conference in December 2007 and the unceremonious defeat of Thabo Mbeki have already been forgotten.
Under recalled Mbeki, the ANC-led government experienced the most rampant corruption in the history of the new South Africa. Mbeki was also publicly accused for having been part of creating the split from the ANC, the Congress of the People (COPE) soon after the conference.
COPE’s leadership consists of all Mbeki’s men and women. He however, denied it. Again, the silence of the media is thundering.
Mbeki’s friend and ally, Paul Mashatile, heads the ANC in the Gauteng Province. Mashatile has been a close friend and associate of the first Premier of Gauteng, Tokyo Sexwale, and the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Finance of the same province, Jabu Moleketi.
The MEC later became Deputy Minister of Finance in Mbeki’s cabinet. Among Mashatile’s friends and allies are Mathews Phosa and Fikile Mbalula.
It should not be ignored that when Mashatile addressed the women in Sandton’s township of Alexandra, he was booed off the stage.
The Premier of the Gauteng Province, Nomvula Mokonyane, made her support of the ANC President public. It is the correct thing to do for all ANC members, whether one likes him, or not. After all, Zuma is the elected president.
Obviously, the ANC will have to have one face only to lead the political party in the forthcoming elections in 2014. At the same time the party should make Zuma’s track record and delivery programme public.
Having followed the political developments, including the insults and undermining harassment of the person of Jacob Zuma, at the same time understanding to what levels the ruling party has been infiltrated and sabotaged, it would come as no surprise once the elections are over, a whole new cabinet under President Jacob Zuma would be appointed.
It is expected that hardly anyone of the old corrupt brigade that claim to be card-carrying ANC members, would stay on. With ‘comrades-in-corruption’ like these, the ANC needs no enemies.
• Udo Froese is a non-institutionalised, independent political and socio-economic analyst and columnist based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Twitter Handle: @theotherafrika
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