COPE, as a party is doomed to extinction after the elections because it embraces anti democracy and anti constitutional values
After reading Graham McIntosh's article (see here), wherein he painstakingly tried albeit unsuccessfully to compare COPE with other political parties in the continent which broke with the tradition of following a liberation style political movement to transcend to a more modern type of political party, I am convinced that COPE won't last 5 years.
Mr McIntosh cites a few cases, from Tsvangirai in to Odinga in as prime examples of a growing emergence of democratic political parties which managed to usurp power from the liberation movements. Graham commits a very elementary mistake here though, for he thinks that a political party which distances itself from the National Democratic Revolution and by implication denounces the Mass Democratic Movement will not only survive but will one day be given a mandate to rule this country.
It is either that Mr McIntosh is not very smart or he is naive and at worst politically myopic. In a country with such widespread poverty, a not so high literacy rate coupled with a double-digit unemployment rate, and high levels of income inequality caused by the leaders of the very political party whose fortunes he punts, Any political party which harbours any hopes of ever ruling this country will not do so unless they have a mass appeal and more importantly outreach.
One needs to take a deeper look into Graham's article because in his confusion he presupposes that COPE is a democratic party which upholds constitutional values whereas they are actually far from it. Granted, Mr McIntosh is entitled to dream and his party can have goals but a goal is supposed to be achievable and realistic.
He seems to firmly believe that they can produce the unthinkable (i.e. that COPE can pull a rabbit out of a hat like a magician). How so though when the hype and fanfare leading to COPE's (whom I have christened COAP due to their affinity for confusion and anger) conference last year produced an aftermath that didn't live up to expectations.
This is a conference which took place after the launch of a "successful" convention which was hailed by the media and liberals alike as a breath of fresh air in SA politics. In reality that "success" only existed in the minds and eyes of the media which had long been dying to see an alternative political party which would rival the ANC and more importantly be answerable to the Fourth estate. Sadly though, the outcome of that conference was mired by cronyism and nepotism and as such it didn't live up to and/or match the media's euphoria and excitement (which bordered on hysteria and lunacy) similar to that which normally follows the birth of a new child.
No sooner had that conference taken place then the wheels started coming off in a marriage made in heaven between the rival political parties which had once shared a podium at the Sandton convention claiming oneness and comradeship. We started hearing accusations and counter accusations from the DA (christened Disgruntled Alliance), this after they had come to their sober senses and realised that COPE was actually going to take away voters from their party rather than reduce the ANC's majority.
For the first time and for this Mrs Zille must be applauded, as she was spot on in her analysis in terms of why COPE was formed in the first place. She correctly pointed out that COPE was formed by those who failed in the ANC's leadership contest in Polokwane and that these are leaders who still wanted to hold on to power for themselves and not to serve the people.
This much is evident in the COPE leaderships' tendency to sneak around at night trying to negotiate a move back to the ANC on condition that they can secure lucrative positions there still. But of course we do not horse trade in the ANC and a leader has to prove their mettle in party structures and it is the party that decides as to where it deploys a cadre and not the cadre which must chose for us.
Honestly, I can't say I remember a time when there were any democratic processes which were followed either prior to or during COPE's consensus conference. To start with, the delegates to their conference were taken off the streets and they didn't represent any branches and/or constituencies. Secondly, no sectoral meetings were ever held when these delegates were elected to represent their communities or any formations. Thirdly there was no guiding constitution in terms of how a delegate was to be elected to go to conference nor how the conference proceedings itself would be run let alone how the credentials would be adopted.
As if that was not undemocratic enough, the interim committee which had selected itself and each other on a buddy-buddy basis to lead depending on the depth of their pockets, or tribal origin, and then told delegates that theirs was not going to be an elective conference. The lame excuse which was given to delegates and interested parties is that they "feared that the outcome would be divisive" should others not be elected into positions of authority. This is further testimony to my assertion that theirs is a party of power-mongers who are driven by a lust and hunger for power plus the prestige that goes with it. If they don't get their way in an elective conference they become despondent and leave the party
Of course what the COPE leaders are not telling South Africa is that their real motivating fear factor was that if they had remained in the ANC they would have ended up as additional executive members and at worst ordinary party members. This was because they didn't command any significant following within the ANC.
Mr Mvume Dandala is a prime example of a leader whose imposition as a presidential candidate had the hallmarks of a tribal coup de tat. I can't help but think that people like Terror and Mbazima were themselves somewhat motivated by tribalism.
Their suggestion that their party not have an elective conference pre-empted the end result. It meant that leaders like Mluleki George, who hails from the Eastern Cape and is of Xhosa heritage - and so had the backing of COPE's main support base - was blocked from being elected as party president. It is my suspicion that the above two leaders wanted a non Nguni to become their newly formed party's president. This suspicion, of tribal wars and tensions, was alluded to and lent credence by Mlungisi Hlongwane when he left COPE to rejoin the ANC.
In the modern day it is deplorable that there is a party which still harbours these backward, shameful and divisive tribal tendencies and the media's silence is deafening. The question which begs to be answered is why doesn't the media see through COPE? Is it a case of blood is thicker than water, after all COPE is a brainchild of the media - albeit it was cultivated through Mbeki's henchmen and women.
It is ironic that a party which preaches democracy and constitutional values to anyone who cares to listen chose consensus instead of allowing democratic processes at their own conference. It must be mentioned for all to note that Jacob Zuma is, by contrast, the first and only truly democratically elected ANC leader post apartheid. In 1991 when Nelson Mandela was first selected as a presidential nominee and duly elected unopposed at the 48th National Conference in Durban, this amounted to a consensus decision. It had been reached by the leadership and was then endorsed by conference.
Again in 1994 in Bloemfontein Mandela retained his seat in similar fashion and history was to repeat itself when Thabo Mbeki, his successor was selected as the presidential nominee at the 50th National Conference in Mafikeng in 1997 and was elected unopposed when conference endorsed the consensus decision.
At the Stellenbosch conference in 2002, another consensus decision was reached when Mbeki retained his position despite three provinces namely KZN, MP and FS nominating Zuma ahead of Mbeki in their respective conferences. Again a compromise was reached thus enabling Mbeki to be elected unopposed.
In 2007, thankfully there was no such luck for Zuma but this was good for democracy. At the 52nd National Conference held in Polokwane where I was present, Zuma was elected democratically, after he had garnered a 60% margin over his arch rival but friend, brother and comrade of then 32 years whom he beat fairly and squarely.
What this tells us about Zuma's election is that he is the people's choice and not since the Consultative Conference in 1985 in Kabwe, or 1969 in Morogoro, did we have democratic elections. In electing Zuma, the ANC went through a rigorous and thorough process of branch nominations in over 3300 branches countrywide and this is a representative sample in research terms. We went further up the line to hold regional and ultimately provincial nominations conferences in order to decide on the ultimate presidential nominee.
An unprecedented procedure was undertaken and followed in that we voted by secret ballot for our nominee of choice at the provincial nominations conferences countrywide whereas in previous conferences we had merely done so by show of hands (where there was disagreement on the ultimate candidate).
If I juxtapose the above democratic processes with the dictatorial approach followed by COPE, it is evident that theirs is a party of tyrants "Ondlovukayiphikwa". A more pressing question which Graham needs to answer is how could a set of leaders who claim to live the values of democracy and constitutionalism, run away from a party whose election processes were and still are democratic in electing its leader and go away to form a party without these principles as a bedrock?
This is the grave error with Graham's argument. He fails to realise his own party's shortcomings. COPE is incompatible with the MDC and ODM because those other parties were somewhat entrenched in the masses and they didn't commit the same mistake as COPE by being championed by the elite. Mr McIntosh underestimates the South African voters but we voters are generally smart and we don't give away too much in our voting patterns. This is why the media has always got it wrong since 1994 in predicting the outcome of various elections over the past decade.
COPE's leaders left to form a splinter group party that is founded on authoritarian principles and greed yet they claim to embrace democracy and a spirit of giving - what hypocrites. There is only one reason, which is glaringly obvious and that is that the formation of COPE as a "potential" opposition party was about safeguarding parliamentary posts for its leaders - nothing more and nothing less. It thus had nothing to do with modernising politics, or principles or safeguarding our constitution or democracy.
These undemocratic leaders had realised that there is/was no way that they could be elected democratically in the ANC, not at least in the top 6 office bearers' positions. They therefore devised an evil plan to hoodwink unsuspecting and gullible members of the business community into supporting their initiative under the auspices of being disgruntled at the way in which Thabo Mbeki, yet another tyrant, was removed from his position as state president.
It is ironic that these political imbeciles said that they wanted to protect our constitution yet a bit of investigation reveals that it is actually they who wanted to change our constitution. In the first instance if Mbeki had won a third term as president of the ANC they were going to change our constitution to give him the right to serve a third term as president of the country.
In the second instance, they were going to change the Constitution in order to allow for the election of the president to be done directly in subsequent years post the 2009 elections. It is not at all surprising though that the media failed to point out these obvious flaws where COPE's conference is concerned. The media even failed to point out the fact that for an organisation which preached service delivery, most of these leaders were office bearers in government and they failed in their constitutional duties to render the much needed services.
The media continues to prove me right in that they are partisan hypocrites who tried albeit unsuccessfully to play a dangerous game of divide and rule. This is a typical apartheid era tactic copied from the Vorster days where newspapers like the Citizen were founded and sponsored by the apartheid government e.g. Project Annemarie authorised by Eschel Rhoodie, then Secretary of Information. This newspaper "Citizen" was headed by Dr Louis Luyt in whose name it was launched but thankfully it was exposed through the information scandal, in September 1978, that cost then Prime Minister John Vorster his job when he resigned in shame after ill health. Even Minister of Information Dr Connie Mulder who would have been a natural successor to Vorster fell out of favour and lost to PW Botha losing with 72 to 78 votes in the National Party's caucus. All these best laid plans however fell flat on its face because South Africans were not stupid and again South Africans are not interested in any news that relates to COPE as a possible new ruler of government and they will prove me right at the polls in a few days time.
At the end of it all, all that unwarranted publicity which has been given to COPE will become a huge farce. In Zuma, the adage, "you can't put a good man down" holds true and those who have a problem with him will be calling him Mr President in the next days.
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