An ANC elective conference is an important occasion on our national calendar, regardless of whether you are a member, supporter or a strident opponent.
For one thing, ANC electoral conferences have delivered every head of state we have had since SA became a democracy in 1994.
Regardless of how one feels about the ANC, its tentacles are everywhere. Virtually, every state policy one prefers or hates has the ANC’s fingerprints on it. The conference is probably second only to the general elections in terms of singular importance for the country’s immediate and long-term future.
That is why then, the rest of us who will not be delegates at the Nasrec showgrounds come mid-December, need to be concerned about the decisions and machinations that will precede and follow the conference.
Those who, in the language of the party, will “emerge” from the conference, are likely to have profound impact on all of us regardless of whether they are in the top six (or seven if some within the party get their way and it adds another deputy secretary-general position to the current six) or in the national executive committee.
It is hard to exaggerate just how the people of SA have an obvious vested interest in how the ANC plays its politics in general or at the conference in particular. While the ANC’s reach is across the board, I will for the purposes of this piece, limit myself to state institutions related to the criminal justice system.
What we know from previous experience is that what would otherwise be understood as pure criminal-justice decisions, such as whether and when to charge former president Jacob Zuma for corruption, can be a decision that impacts on the party conference.
We can expect the same narrative going into Nasrec. We can expect that state resources such as policing, intelligence and even state jobs will be used, or rather abused, to serve factional interests in the ANC’s internecine strife.
The Zondo Commission findings and the Phala Phala inquiry mean that a decision that at any other time of the five-year cycle may be measured on its own merits, will this time be understood to want to have a bearing on the outcomes of the ANC conference.
If and when the National Prosecuting Authority decides that some of the people chief justice Raymond Zondo said should be charged are charged, will be seen rightly or wrongly, as playing into ANC faction fights.
If those charged are seen as rivals to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ambitions for a second term, many South Africans will conclude that the head of state is purging political foes. If those who the public expects to be charged are not, the president will face a count of protecting his own.
The same applies to Phala Phala. The timing and the content of the report will be seen as either aimed at bolstering or crippling Ramaphosa’s attempts to consolidate his power. All of these things demand that we, the people of SA, be vigilant and jealous of our national institutions and defend the state from the greedy who seek power to advance their nefarious ambitions.
We cannot afford to allow these institutions to fall into the hands of any political party’s narrow agendas and aims. We must be even more jealous of these institutions falling into the hands of a faction.
This in practical terms demands that whatever criminal justice decisions that have an impact on any contenders for the ANC top positions, be there for the incumbent or those who seek to topple him, should not only be done without fear or favour but demonstrably so.
This means that the institutions must go all out to publicly share their reasons or evidence for taking the decisions they would have taken. State institutions should be zealous about preserving their autonomy and we, as the public and civil society, must see them as such and defend them with all that we have.
ANC conferences come and go. So do its leaders. State institutions must abide forever. Their integrity should never be in question regardless of who happens to be in charge of the state that day or year.
The integrity of the criminal justice system must hold firm if the battle against corruption and abuse of state power is to be won.
So, whatever you might feel about the ANC or its individual leaders, all of us have a duty to not allow for state powers to be used as a plaything to settle internal party scores.
It is the least we can leave for future generations.
MoyaF@sowetan.co.za
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