One by One the Dominoes Fall Assessing Life After Zuma
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HAMBA KAHLE CDE RICA HODGSON! February 2018 Voice of the South African Communist Party Dawn of the post-Nasrec era ONE BY ONE THE DOMINOES FALL Assessing life after Zuma Now more than ever our Party must play its vanguard role! 2 Umsebenzi NEW YEAR Advancing into new, uncertain times As South Africa moves into exciting, but uncertain, times, writes Jeremy Cronin, our Party must be strategically consistent, analytically alert and tactically flexible enin is reputed to have once said on the matter (a report that somehow Mbeki… only to be re-hired and gifted “there are decades where nothing manages to leave the Guptas out of the with a fancy Dubai apartment when his happens, and weeks where decades equation). father’s fortunes turned. Lhappen.” It would be an exaggera- Yes, much of what is happening is still Over a year ago, the SACP called for tion to claim decades have been hap- half moves, reluctant shifts, or just the an independent judicial commission into pening in South Africa in the past few beginnings of long suppressed investiga- corporate capture of the state. The former weeks. We are not exactly living through tions. But we shouldn’t underestimate Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s State “ten days that shook the world” as John what is afoot, or fail to act vigorously in of Capture report took up this idea and Reed once described the 1917 Bolshevik support of the momentum that has now added that, since he was implicated in the Revolution. opened up. report, President Zuma could not select But we are certainly living through Everywhere, former Gupta political the judge. After many delays and court a rapid and considerable shaking up of lackeys are jumping ship. Scoundrels are challenges, finally Deputy Chief Justice South Africa and notably of the ANC and running for cover. Looters are turning Zondo has been nominated by the chief the state. whistle-blowers: justice and duly appointed, with terms of After a prolonged and painful period • The former Group CEO of Prasa reference now published that focus on of ANC leadership paralysis, with one (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) the public protector’s findings. scandal piling up after another, sudden- has tossed a few colleagues under the There is much else that has hap- ly, since mid-January, a flurry of long de- proverbial bus (his trains don’t work); pened. Former acting police commis- layed developments has kicked off, and • A key player in the 1990s arms deal sioner Khomotso Phahlane and his wife with an increasing tempo. There is a real saga, Ajay Sookal, has crept from the have been criminally charged. Although sense of falling dominoes. woodwork to spill some of the beans at it is being challenged in court, Shaun Ab- Most notably, of course, as Umsebenzi a People’s Tribunal. (It is a tribunal that rahams’ appointment has been set aside is being produced, an ANC recall of Pres- in a matter of days has put to shame the and Zuma has been disqualified from ap- ident Jacob Zuma, something the SACP earlier, spineless Judge Seriti Commis- pointing a successor. In fact, Zuma has has long insisted upon, is now surely sion into the arms deal). been losing court case after court case, or imminent. Apart from implicating two French pre-emptively conceding at the eleventh But a Zuma recall is just one of mul- presidents and several prominent ANC hour, and, in the process, throwing those tiple and interconnected developments. politicians in a massive cover-up, Sookal who had defended him to the wolves. There have finally been decisive moves has recounted some illuminating an- Brian Molefe is also not having a happy on Eskom, led by the deputy state presi- ecdotes, like how Duduzane Zuma was time in the courts. dent Cde Ramaphosa acting as de facto fired by the Guptas and left without taxi Recently elected ANC officials pro- state president and in clear disregard for fare when his father was suspended by claim “Zuma is going nowhere” one the nominal president. In similar fash- day… and sheepishly change their tune ion, Cde Ramaphosa declared publicly the next. The MKMVA head does an inel- at Davos that there would be no nuclear egant somersault in the name of “unity” deal. Everywhere, former Gupta and is accused, understandably, by his The Hawks have found wings, swoop- political lackeys are jumping own rag-tag organisation of desertion – ing on the scandalous Vrede dairy farm as if this were not a well-known charac- Estina deal, even dragging the current ship & scoundrels are ter trait. Public Protector into belatedly issuing running for cover Even the imperious and arrogant Mul- her own pathetically anodyne report tiChoice concedes that, oops, there might February 2018 Umsebenzi 3 VICTORY HUG: ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa is congratulated by his rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma have been a technical problem with the tional Conference. And yet that confer- is commonly portrayed) major lobbying ANN7 deal – but (of course) they are still ence appeared to deliver a non-result, a alignments and electoral slates. implausibly denying that it had anything 50/50 outcome between two apparently Back in Polokwane there was what whatsoever to do with trying to buy in- contradictory slates, and with everyone turned out to be a 40% pro-Mbeki versus fluence with government via the Guptas. proclaiming this outcome as a victory a 60% anti-Mbeki lobby. But the 60% an- Obviously, this sudden flurry of posi- for “unity”, when, in fact, it seemed to ti-Mbeki lobby involved two very distinct tive developments has not emerged from promise a persisting paralysis, a stale- tendencies – a left axis largely driven by nowhere. SACP structures, along with mate between warring factions. What is the SACP and Cosatu, and a predatory many comrades from within the ANC-led more, the SACP appeared to be the big primitive accumulation lobby, whose movement, have waged a sustained and loser at the conference with many SACP campaigning muscle was located within principled struggle against state capture leaders not elected or re-elected as na- the ANC Youth League. In the case of and in defence of our hard-won democ- tional executive committee members. the latter tendency, its anti-Mbeki stance racy, our constitution, and our national So how do we explain the paradox? was not ideological so much as a frustra- sovereignty. We have been accused of Like the 2007 Polokwane ANC National tion that its leading personalities were treason, of selling out to white monopoly Conference, which marked the beginning excluded from Mbeki’s privileged inner- capital, and much else – but we have not of the end of President Mbeki’s hegemo- circle of BEE beneficiaries. Soon after the been intimidated. For some months now, ny, December’s ANC National Conference Polokwane conference tensions devel- many (but not all) ANC MPs (among at Nasrec involved three and not two (as oped within the 60% anti-Mbeki lobby, them SACP members) have played a with the predatory and demagogic ANC leading role in parliamentary hearings YL-centred pro-Zuma faction morphing that have further exposed state capture. into the Gupta state capture agenda. The role of many journalists needs to be It is important that the SACP Things were not entirely dissimilar particularly saluted. & all progressive & patriotic but perhaps a bit more complicated in There has been a steady accumula- December at Nasrec. Standing against tion of struggles, internal and external forces do not to stand aloof what became labelled crudely as the Zu- battles, and mounting crises, but the from the sudden burst of ma-NDZ-Gupta grouping were two some- critical factor in breaking the logjam has what distinct alignments. On the one surely been the ANC’s December Na- momentum underway hand, an assortment of what we might February 2018 4 Umsebenzi (for want of a better word) describe as ANC “centrists” – stalwarts, veterans, some former Mbeki-ites, all disgusted by the deepening scandals and the loss of moral standing of the organisation, an organisation they had sacrificed to build. Generally, these comrades enjoyed wide- spread popularity from ordinary ANC members and certainly from millions of disappointed ANC supporters. But they typically lacked major organisational muscle within the ANC and therefore often depended on the machinery of the SACP and (to a lesser extent) of Cosatu to penetrate provinces that had become effective no-go areas for anti-state cap- ture campaigning. Against this tendency, the Zuma camp was able to muster considerable, well-resourced (from ill-gotten gains) or- ganisational muscle in several key prov- Supporters of Cyril Ramaphosa celebrate outside Nasrec inces and from the ANC YL and Women’s League. next “great man” will be our salvation. against state capture and in defence of So how did the so-called CR17 cam- Apart from anything else, this would be our national sovereignty and our demo- paign still manage to win the ANC presi- no favour to the ANC president himself. cratic constitution. The patriotic plat- dency and obtain a tiny numerical advan- The state-capturers are off-balance. So form that emerged, for instance, from tage in the election of other structures? far, the best they can muster by way of the SACP-convened imbizo last year is This is where things get a little a fight-back has been a sad little Black almost exactly what is now being driven complicated. First Land First rented army and some from the presidency of the ANC itself, Not everyone in the anti-Zuma/ tweeting from one of the presidential with the widest support of much of so- anti-Gupta camp was (or is) against the wives.