As the ANC prepares for its national policy conference this weekend, uppermost in the minds of many will be whether its resolution on the step-aside rule will remain on the table for much longer.
The resolution, taken at its 2017 national conference, compels all leaders facing serious charges of corruption to vacate their positions until they are cleared by the courts.
It was a bold move from a party whose moral legitimacy has all but vanished in the eyes of the public because of entrenched corruption.
With the resolution, party president Cyril Ramaphosa sought to convince us that his leadership was so serious about fighting corruption that they were prepared to cast aside those accused of acts that undermine this attempt at reform.
But no sooner had it been adopted that it would perpetually be challenged by those whose very political survival depends on a corrupt ANC.
At the weekend the resolution – and by extension the attempt at reform – faced its biggest onslaught yet when the provincial conference in KwaZulu-Natal resolved that it should be scrapped.
The ANC in KZN is the biggest and second province seeking for the rule to be abandoned following the Limpopo leadership’s push for the same last month.
Both provinces argue that not only is the rule inconsistent with the country’s constitution, but that it is unfair for a person to be “punished” for allegations that are yet to be tested by a court.
Of course the real issue is not so much about what is fair or unconstitutional for that matter.
A full bench of the high court has already ruled that the step-aside rule was neither unconstitutional nor inconsistent with the party’s own constitution.
Therefore the argument against the rule should be understood as an attempt to push back on any practical response to allegations of corruption.
Come this weekend’s policy conference and, ultimately, the elective conference in December, the ANC’s step-aside resolution will become a power proxy to test the extent and weight of Ramaphosa’s influence in the party he leads.
It may also, yet again, demonstrate how far ANC members, irrespective of their faction, are prepared to go to reject any form of moral accountability in their ranks.
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