One of the things the ANC has successfully done in this country was to make us accept, even unwittingly, its consistent lowering of standards of leadership as though it were normal .
Just the other day we listened to Mosebenzi Zwane, an MP, telling the state capture commission that when he was a cabinet minister he appointed advisers whose background or qualifications he did not know purely on the basis that they had a proper understanding of the ANC.
General advisers, he called them with a smirk .
Of course Zwane knew the men in question and had appointed them as part of the patronage network he and others like him were setting up to enable the state capture project.
But he played dumb at the commission because he knows that as South Africans, offended as we may be by corruption, we are generally accepting of low leadership standards.
This is why characters like Zwane continue to occupy parliamentary positions they are hopelessly unsuitable for, at the expense of the taxpayer.
The point is the ANC knows that our expectation of leadership is so low that even when we demand accountability, it only needs to promise to clean up its act, rather than actually doing so.
About a year ago many of us were rightfully incensed with the corruption in the government. The latest trigger was how dodgy politically connected characters got their grubby hands on money meant to save our lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Had they no shame, we exclaimed!
Notwithstanding that some of those involved are being investigated by law-enforcement agencies, the point is that the freedom with which those agencies can pursue people involved in graft is largely dependent on the prevailing political environment .
Feeling the heat, President Cyril Ramaphosa threw us a bone to chew on in August.
He said those in the ANC facing charges of corruption had to step aside until they had been cleared, as per the resolutions decided on at the Nasrec conference.
At last the man in charge of this wrecking ball that is the governing party is finally starting to draw a line in the sand as promised many times before, some said.
But, predictably, it was not to be. Instead, the factional back and forth began until the March national executive committee (NEC) meeting, after which we were thrown another bone.
With even more vigour this time, Ramaphosa told us that the final-final decision of the NEC, based on the conference resolutions, is that members facing corruption charges are given 30 days to step aside or face suspension.
All provinces had to send names of such comrades to the office of the secretary-general, headed by a guy who himself had a corruption case to answer to and had to step down in 30 days but only after consulting with party veterans.
And so the 30-day countdown began.
Consensus was that it ended on Thursday.
By Friday, Ace Magashule was very much in office and the conversation had changed to a possible “political solution” that may or may not include him appealing against the NEC decision – a process that would ultimately lead to the NEC taking a final-final-final decision on the matter.
Yesterday, some media reports suggested that Magashule had bowed to pressure and was amenable to stepping side, subject to further discussions in the national working committee and later the NEC due to meet in the coming days.
Others, however, carried the voice of Magashule’s supporters who reiterated that he was going nowhere.
Here’s the thing.
Magashule will continue to hedge his bets and push the envelope as long as he can.
Who wouldn’t in his situation?
His prospects outside the ANC are slim.
He is a 61-year-old discredited politician who faces the prospects of going to jail.
His political sustainability is and has always been rooted in state-funded patronage.
He is astute enough to know not to test the electoral strength of his individual brand outside the ANC.
It is only under the cover of the party that he enjoys a semblance of unearned credibility and access to state power.
He will do everything possible to remain in the ANC’s fold in the long run.
But even if he goes, it would be naive for us to believe that the chaos in the ANC would end with him, especially heading up to its elective conference next year.
If Magashule’s detractors succeed in weakening or even expelling him, those who support him will simply latch on to the next figure who represents all that is abhorrent about the party and its sins of incumbency.
The most enduring feature of the ANC is its ability to distract us with its meaningless, never-ending power plays, none of which have anything to do with improving the lives of ordinary South Africans but are about the power to facilitate the plundering of what’s left of this beautiful country of ours.
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