ANC in KZN is a key building block for Jacob Zuma’s second term, with decisive show of support at provincial conference.
|||
There’s a delicate balance the ANC treads in KwaZulu-Natal and as the largest province with just over a quarter of a million members, it was at pains during this weekend’s provincial conference to shift focus from its numerical strength to quality contributions to policies, programmes and unity.
With 252 688 members, KwaZulu-Natal will command about a quarter of the delegates at the ANC national elective conference at Mangaung in December, making the ANC in the region a force to be reckoned with - and a key building block to President Jacob Zuma securing a second term.
The provincial ANC has been the party’s star performer in elections since 2006, bucking the downward trend at the hustings for the ruling party.
This means the provincial ANC is well-placed to outshine the movement’s so-called royal families, most of whom have their roots in the Eastern Cape, and the urban elites.
At this weekend’s provincial conference much was made of the provincial 2011 municipal election performance after a tension-filled run-up marked by what is referred to as “oNdikhetheni”, roughly translated as the “elect me” group.
KwaZulu-Natal’s sterling election performance is recognised in the ANC’s organisational renewal discussion document: “Softer mobilisation of support saw ANC votes in 2009 fall or grow less than the electorate grew in every province except one (KZN). In five provinces, the ANC mobilised less votes than in 1999.”
Premier Zweli Mkhize, who was re-elected unopposed this weekend, put it bluntly: KwaZulu-Natal was not a province “fixated” with numbers or the size of its delegation to Mangaung, but with building the ANC and working with others.
Cosatu provincial secretary Zet Luzipo said: “We will go (to Mangaung) to persuade and influence. We must also be prepared to be swayed.”
The chairman of the largest ANC region in SA, eThekwini, and also the Health MEC, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, dismissed simplistic linking the growth in ANC membership in the province with pro-Zuma sentiments.
“If you look at the statistics, yes, KwaZulu-Natal came in very small in 2004. (But) we have been growing and we didn’t have to wait for the President Zuma…There has been a growth in the ANC even under Thabo Mbeki… It is not a true picture to say there is overwhelming support because Comrade Zuma is president,” he said.
Professor Susan Booysen of the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management, has dismissed this as “just talk” and “disingenuous” saying the provincial ANC had been systematically working at falling behind Zuma.
“(Numbers), that’s how ANC conference majorities are constructed,” she said. “It’s almost South Africa’s next national election playing itself out over the past few days (in KwaZulu-Natal).”
A complex set of factors favour the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. These include the bloody history of what the apartheid government called “black-on-black violence”, which lasted several years into democracy, and IFP cultural chauvinism, which many say is a push factor towards the ANC.
Pull-factors include good governance – the delivery track record of ANC MECs including Mkhize and S’bu Ndebele, who served as health, later finance MEC, and transport MEC in coalition governments with the IFP – and solid, if not unblemished, ANC leadership.
Despite several question marks, including the yet to be released Manase report on maladministration in the eThekwini metro, and fraud and corruption charges against Speaker Penny Nkonyeni and Economic Development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu, the ANC’s grassroots approach of holding imbizos to brief communities seems to be paying off.
Several insiders dismissed ethnic dynamics as the explanation for the party’s growth, as did several other senior leaders Weekend Argus spoke to. The ANC frowns on manipulating tribal and ethnic ties even if in many provinces, like Limpopo, these are quietly recognised as a factor in unfolding provincial power plays. Instead unity is big in KwaZulu-Natal – not just within ANC ranks, but across the tripartite alliance with Cosatu and the SACP.
Luzipo said it wasn’t that the labour federation never disagreed with the ANC, or vice versa, but there was the ability to resolve issues. “There’s an element of mutual respect. We don’t hide things when there are areas of difference,” he said.
In KwaZulu-Natal, unlike for example in parts of the Eastern Cape, Cosatu did not field its own candidates in the 11 regional elections ahead of the provincial conference. Instead it pulled together with the ANC, SACP and members of the ANC Youth League, disbanded late last year over its pro-Zuma stance by the league’s national officials who favour regime change.
The result: a provincial conference where leadership issues were not a burning issue as all officials were re-elected unopposed. “Why change something that works?” said one insider.
And that unity pays off, as Yunus Carrim of the SACP noted. “It’s a relatively, if not substantially united conference, (confident in its leadership) not just here at the conference, but also at Mangaung,” he said. “This conference is very valuable because it focuses on policy. You will not be caught up in two factions.”
If there was any doubt KwaZulu-Natal would not back Zuma, it was decisively removed at this weekend’s conference. The show of support through song and sentiment followed the regional general council resolution of eThekwini’s over 90 000 members, in favour of Zuma.
And the ANC’s impressive support in the province appears to be something of a groundswell, with talk at the conference that membership in the province could possibly reach the one million mark. - Sunday Argus