Johannesburg – At every interval in a five-yearly cycle, about 5 000 men and women better known as ANC delegates converge at a venue of their choice to decide on SA’s new rulers over a population of some 60 million people who have very little or no direct say in the proceedings.
That, in a nutshell, is the total of what we all know as the ANC’s elective conference. The estimated 5 000 representatives from all quarters of the ANC’s national footprint are known as the “branch delegates”. Together, and exclusively, they hold the fate of the entire SA population like water in the palm of their hands.
To rile against this practice and format of the country’s rulers since the dawn of democracy in April 1994 is a moot point. Rather, from near and afar, all efforts would be better channelled on enabling the 5 000 makers of kings and queens to take cognisance of the public court of opinion about their actions. After all, it is the public that the 5 000 ostensibly purport to act in their best interest.
As the next ANC’s elective conference beckons, the impotent 60 million populace that bears no direct influence over the outcomes of the usually contentious conference to decide on our new periodic rulers can only wish, watch and wait. The conference is scheduled to take place in the middle of December – as always – and the victors look forward to a truly Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as the vanquished lick their wounds, predictably plotting for the fall of their conquerors.
That is SA’s politics 101, based on the processes and procedures of the ruling ANC. Under these circumstances, methinks it’s wise to appeal to the conscience and intellect of the 5 000 partakers. As public commentators and members of the Fourth Estate – representing scores of the voiceless – the weak against the powerful, we need to implore the 5 000 “to take a walk in our shoes and get into their skins”, to slightly paraphrase Harper Lee in her seminal 1962 novel “To Kill a Mocking Bird”.
That’s the only way the ANC delegates could get to appreciate the concerns, and fears, of those they claim to represent – the public.
Now, let me cut to the chase: The December 2022 conference must bestow on South Africa a woman-led leadership. Period. Men have occupied the higher echelons of the ruling party since democratization in 1994. They have given the country a plethora of thieving comrades masquerading as do-gooders. From national, and provincial to local government – the common denominator is corruption.
I am not yet started with dubious skills deployment. We’ve suffered a great deal with unfit-for-purpose civil servants whose claim to top positions has been far from a meritocracy. The scourge of patriarchy still looms large over our developmental state. At the socio-economic level men are ubiquitous in plum positions and cushy jobs many of them are undeserving. They flaunt their “big macho tough guy” habits that make it impossible for them to admit to their shortcomings both at work and at the home.
South Africa’s development ought to be premised on the rapidly-changing global trends, where women have forced their way up through the man-made glass ceiling. To break the glass ceiling must be incorporated into the Statute books under women-led national, provincial and local government stewardship.
Yet the ANC is fortunate to be blessed with a litany of highly-intelligent women, many of who possess a proven track record in governance and public office. One such is the irrepressible Dr Nkosasana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma. She is a woman of steel. A medical doctor by profession who is capable of walking with kings and queens and still keeping her common touch.
A tested cadre of the movement, to invoke the ANC speak. Everything she touches turns to gold. When she took over the cantankerous Department of Home Affairs, she swiftly brought to an abrupt end the institutionalised thieving. Her much-heralded reforms aided the acceptable international standing of RSA. For once, under her watch, the global community began to respect the worth and value of the SA ID books and passports.
The British government at Number 10 Downing Street was one of the many that had expressed a deep sense of exasperation at the constant use of SA documents fraudulently. The Tony Blair administration made known their apprehension by introducing a strict visa regime where previously none was required when travelling between SA and Britain for six months.
The visa regime sadly remains, as no grounds surfaced to warrant the subsequent waiver. Such are the effects of long-lasting diplomatic harm in bilateral relations that had been traditional of mutual benefit.
As Minister of Health, who can forget the drastic reforms to smoking in public places? At the time, it seemed a harsh piece of legislation. However, many countries have since emulated the brave and wise move first established by SA under the firm authority of Dr Dlamini-Zuma who ably steered the ship.
One need not be a cadre of the movement to appreciate the splendid work that NDZ, as she is fondly called, has carried out in whatever deployment. As minister of Foreign Affairs, she excelled in building tight diplomatic ties with the global community. Our commendable participation in multilateral institutions such as the UN, IMF, World Bank and WEF, among others, was due to the gentle yet firm leadership of NDZ.
She has served under all the post-apartheid presidents – from Mandela, Mbeki, Motlanthe, Zuma and now Cyril Ramaphosa, where she heads the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA). At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was the glue that held the Ramaphosa administration together and an outlet through which the public stayed informed. Very few can flaunt similar credentials.
She has served SA with aplomb. Also fortunate to share in her dedication and commitment to offering her servant leadership has been Mother Africa. In July 2012, she was elected by the AU Assembly as the AU Chair for a four-year term. I met Dr Dlamini-Zuma at the AU HQ in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa during her tenure whilst a part of the African Editors delegation to give our input on the AU’s Agenda 2063, Africa’s development blueprint. Agenda 2063 is aimed at achieving “inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development over 50 years”.
The AU’s online search still describes her as “an undisputable trailblazer in the upliftment and empowerment of women across the African continent”.
Women make up the majority of SA’s population, yet they remain the most disenfranchised by patriarchal practices and diabolical macho culture that too often goes unnoticed and unpunished. But women better wake up. As Mandela once opined: “It’s in your hands.” It’s never too late to reset political miscalculations.
Men, by and large, are women’s closest and most dangerous predators. A tough woman head of State such as Dr Dlamini-Zuma would ensure that a laissez-faire attitude to men’s constant transgressions does not pass without grave consequences. But seeing that women across society and particularly in the ANC remain a majority voting bloc, it is incumbent upon them to invoke their spirit of African feminism to vote themselves into power at the December 2022 conference. No man would do it for the ANC women.
For far too long, women in society have been considered only the crumbs at the dinner table. The days of queueing up for scraps inside the ANC’s Luthuli House must be declared archaic and undesirable through the self-empowering vote of women, for women, by women.
This will spur on the women of SA as they so often cry out desperately: “Nothing about us without us.”
The fact that for so long women in the ruling party have remained inexplicably disenfranchised amid the one (wo)man, one vote system reveals the truth that women do tend to become their own worst enemies. In the new dispensation, hopefully under Dr Dlamini-Zuma, women would give SA a more caring, humane face than the cannibalistic tendencies such as the recent mass rape of young women shooting a music video in a disused mine dump in Krugersdorp on the West Rand.
To all the male participants at the ANC December conference, I urge you all to remember who brought you into this world. Who carried you for nine months? Whose breast did you suck for sustenance? Many a question simply compels ANC members to do the right thing and endorse a mother figure, a tried-and-tested woman in NDZ. This would be a bold declaration of confidence in all SA women and a trigger for a truly brighter future for all citizens. Do the right thing at the conference and elect this mother-of-four, for NDZ’s patriotic spirit and love and care for all are beyond reproach. I rest my case. Womandla.
