Can SA afford Ace?
Can South Africa afford Ace Magashule? Can the ANC afford a Secretary-General (SG) like him?
The question is not an idle one. The governing party has an organisational set-up reminiscent of Soviet Russia or Communist China, quite out of place in our constitutional democracy.
In the successful countries of the world (that care about freedom, human rights, the Rule of Law, growing economies, high employment and decent living standards) political party functionaries know their place. The party is not confused with the state; the party does not rule; the elected representatives of the voters, through the government, govern the country. The government determines policy and implements it. Certainly not either a secretary-general or a so-called “top six,” both of which have been inflicted on South Africa by the ANC.
There is a price to pay for this crypto-party-dictatorship. It makes the government and President Ramaphosa look weak and indecisive. Allied with the president’s natural hesitation about acting with vigour, as opposed to making promises of action, contradictory statements and views from the SG make the president look as though he leads a government that is not sure of itself.
It is the SG and his Luthuli House comrades who were responsible for the compiling of the election lists. MPs and MPLs know who put them there: the SG and not the President. Readers may recall that when there was an uproar about the ANC election lists, President Ramaphosa had to confess that the leadership had no say: it was the branches and local formations that had the say.