The ANC has violated its bond of trust with the people

20 April 2016

In its Preamble, the Freedom Charter declares thus: ‘We, the people of South Africa, declare to all the country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people’. [My emphasis]. The Freedom Charter being the basic policy perspective of the ANC, this statement should have profound implications for the ANC and the government it leads.

Historically, the process that led to the formulation of the Freedom Charter constituted an extensive and conscientious consultative process to garner the views of ordinary South Africans from all walks of life. The ANC, through its volunteers and leaders, participated in this process enthusiastically. We did so because we understood that the objective basis of that process was to define a vision for future South Africa.

In the early 90’s when we negotiated our constitutional democracy, the ANC, to its credit, realized the strategic importance of the moment in terms of defining the future of South Africa. In this realization the ANC again sent its volunteers and leaders across the length and breath of our country to solicit the views of ordinary South Africans regarding the kind of South Africa they wanted to see in the future.

Accordingly, this was done to ensure that whatever future South Africa ordinary people desire is based on their will. That no government can justly exercise any authority over them unless it was based on their will! So it stood to reason that in defining the future South Africa, the ANC was duty bound to consult and listen to the views of all South Africans. Indeed, the ANC truly listened and incorporated many of the views advanced by South Africans into a document later to be called the South African Constitution- our common heritage for which many laid down their lives!

We narrate this brief history to highlight the important issue of respecting the will of the people as an insurance policy to building a bond of trust between any leading political vanguard movement and the people. In going through the painstaking process of extensive consultation on both occasions above, the ANC was not just passing time but seriously building a bond of trust in its relationship with the people of South Africa. It was putting itself at the service of the people as their weapon in the struggle for their own liberation.

Therefore, if the ANC understands our resultant constitution as a cement that solidified that bond of trust with the people, anyone who violates this constitution with impunity actually violates the foundations of that bond of trust strenuously built with the people. In effect such a person violates the very essence of our historical project to building a common future defined by unity in all our diversity. Such is a cardinal transgression that should be punished harshly! Hence we are convinced that if it was any other person who has brought the ANC into this level of disrepute, calls for his expulsion from the ANC would have been made by now.

It is on the basis of this understanding that the ANC cannot willy-nilly ignore the crescendo of voices calling for it to take decisive action against president Zuma for violating this bond of trust between the ANC and the people of South Africa. Instead of being inward-looking and be concerned only about itself at the expense of South African people, the ANC needs to listen to what the people demand of it. Ignoring the voice of the people will have dire long-term consequences compared to the short term, nominal unity borne of an obsession to protect an individual over the rest.

In this connection, the fundamental litmus test that will determine if the ANC is still committed to the constitutional democracy will be whether the ANC listens and respects the will of the people. This commitment cannot only be rhetorical without being accompanied by decisive action where there has been serious breach of the constitution, especially by a sitting president. So much is expected of the president of the country as was correctly referred to by the constitutional court, which characterised the president as the ‘embodiment of our constitutional project’; a ‘constitutional being’.

In this regard the Constitutional Court set the bar higher for the head of state and should have spurned the ANC into swift and decisive action against the president. But, we all know by now that the president tendered a semi-apology for the ‘confusion and frustration the Nkandla matter has caused’. All has apparently been forgiven. Now we are back to

business as usual. Or is it? Time will tell if one considers the silent protest by ordinary people who have started to reject the president by snubbing events he’s scheduled as the main speaker.

Tellingly, the monumental failure of leadership by the ANC - its tolerance for, and complicity to, the violation of the country’s constitution by one of its members – amounts to revolutionary negligence. This has an effect of rubber stamping lawlessness in a country that battles daily with high levels of corruption and general criminality. This so that the ANC can hold on with its dear life to President Zuma, whatever the costs.

No doubt that this failure will have egregious consequences that will put our constitutional democracy at risk. This is because the ANC leadership has now legitimised the violation of our constitution as a normal practice that can be excused via a lame apology. Accordingly, we have now entered an uncertain era defined by the deliberate suspension of common sense and reasoning on the part of the ANC leadership. This dangerous, sycophant defense of comrade Zuma at the expense of the ANC itself is evident in the uncouth, rude and extra-ordinary arrogant statements by the KZN ANC and the ANCWL in their responses to those calling for president Zuma to resign.

These structures have arrogated to themselves the status of being stomp troopers that will insult and denigrate anyone calling for comrade Zuma to be disciplined for his actions. They do all this in defense of an individual without any care for the integrity of the ANC! They have no regard whatsoever for modern democratic rights to free speech and opinion. We must be very afraid!

In conclusion, it cannot be the ANC that stubbornly refuses to listen to the voices of the people. Any revolutionary movement worth its salt aught to know that the will of the people and the concomitant bond of trust build with the people are the guarantors of people’s power. Therefore, to act against the people’s will and violate their bond of trust on the movement runs counter to the objectives of the revolution.

Mzukisi Makatse is a member of the ANC writing in his personal capacity.