THE FORMATION OF COPE, A BAD IDEA GONE HORRIBLY WRONG!!
The idea to form COPE was a bad idea from the start, more so on the real basis of its formation and one can say that the party was built on a badly constructed foundation and on the premise of lies camouflaged as truth. This assertion is not intended to suggest that the formation of breakaway parties is necessarily or always a bad idea, this assertion is solely reserved for the formation of COPE. There are many reasons that qualify the formation of COPE as an erroneous and mischievous decision.
Amongst others these are the chief foundational errors that formed the basis of the formation of COPE,
COPE was formed out of egos, the formation of new political parties in any democracy is good for strengthening democracy as it provides alternatives to any ruling party and this keeps the ruling party in check and pushes them to deliver for the electorate as they know that failure to deliver can result in them being voted out of power in favor of other alternative political parties.
However any party that intends being a strong alternative must be founded on the principles that seek to advance the interests of the citizens, and in the South African context, the interest of the majority who are the poor and the working class should be prioritized by any party that wants to win elections. Whilst COPE founders would have had the country and the world believe that they formed COPE to defend the constitution and other fundamentals of democracy, it didn't take long for the real reasons to show up.
COPE was formed out of egos of the likes of Lekota and Shilowa who believed that they were holier than one Jacob Zuma and could not bring their royal harness selves to be led by a man they perceived to be of low class, uneducated and less intelligent than they were. Instead of having to call Jacob Zuma, "my president", they opted to go and form their own party whilst hoping that the feelings they shared amongst themselves about Zuma were shared by the majority of the citizens of the country, unfortunately for them the 2009 national elections proved otherwise.
There was nothing political about the departure of the two men from the ANC, this is evidenced by their behavior since they left the ANC to form COPE, everything and more that they told South Africans were the reason why they left the ANC is happening in COPE under their leadership and by all accounts they are the leaders of the cabals and factions that beat each other up and throw chairs at each other.
COPE was also formed on the back of the Thabo Mbeki sympathy appeal to the citizens of the country. The founders of COPE have indirectly sought to appeal for public support by presenting themselves as the defenders of the ill treated sitting president of the country who was recalled by his party before he could complete his term of office and the intelligent and worthy president of the ANC who was voted out of his party's presidency by a group of ill advised conference delegates of the ANC's Polokwane national conference of 2007.
This they did by associating the party with the former president and by publicly declaring that COPE reveres the former president and that COPE will stand to save the country from Zuma the predator and continue the legacy of Thabo Mbeki. The constitution of the membership of COPE suggests that this blackmail tactic did work for the party as many in its membership ranks are the middle class who are the biggest beneficiaries of the Thabo Mbeki presidency and its membership is stronger in the Eastern Cape in terms of numbers which suggests some ethnic sympathy showed to Thabo Mbeki by his village oaks.
COPE was also formed out of an uncontrollable desire and hunger for power by its main founders. A good look at the front runners in the split and formation of COPE suggest that many who participated in its formation were propelled by the hunger for power or at least they joined the movement as a desperate means of political survival.
Let's have a look at a few of them, one Terror Lekota stood for the position of Secretary General at the ANC Polokwane conference, having been defeated he could not fathom a future where he would be just an ordinary member of the ANC having served in its national executive committee for many years including as its national chair person.
Then there is Mbhazima Shilowa a man that Thabo Mbeki took from COSATU and made him a house hold name in South African politics and public governance when he engineered his election as chair person of the strong Gauteng province and made him a premier of the most economically powerful region in Africa. He had been at the fore front of the Thabo Mbeki campaign towards Polokwane and when his bid for the third term as president of the ANC failed, Shilowa new that in retributive politics the writing was on the wall for him, it was a matter of time before his hands are removed from the levers of power as the chief captain of the Gauteng ship. So he too opted for alternatives to stay in power.
The same goes for the former deputy defence minister Mluleki George, he too was in the same boat as Shilowa having been the chief lobbyist for Thabo Mbeki's quest for a third term. There is as well one Phillip Dexter, who ran out of favor with the SACP a party he served as its national treasurer. The SACP strongly supported Jacob Zuma's campaign towards Polokwane, he too new that without the SACP, he was to start a new journey of political loneliness out in the cold.
There is also the likes of Smuts Ngonyama, the former head of the presidency during Thabo Mbeki era, a man who by all accounts was the face of the ANC and was more on television screens than the secretary general of the party, he too could not stomach the idea of being another ordinary rank and file and there is Bulelani Ngcuka , the man hailed as the behind the scenes Dalai lama of COPE and is credited with making sure Dandala became the presidential candidate of COPE ahead of Terror Lekota, he just knew that given that the supporters of Jacob Zuma held him accountable for his legal woes he had to find a new political home if he is to remain influential in South African politics.
COPE leaders fooled South Africans and lied to the nation and made them believe that the formation of COPE was about the wellbeing of the nation, democracy and the rule of law, whilst all along it was about the selected few who wanted to remain in the club of the political elite at all costs. These people were so ruthless that they went as far as dragging a priest with a good name and brand and tarnished his image, all that for the simple reason of securing a political high life for themselves.
Many of those who were hoodwinked into believing that COPE was about the plight of south Africans and were made part of the leadership were lucky enough to recognize the lie that was and is COPE and left the party, this includes the former second deputy president Linda Ordendaal, Dandala, Allan Boesak, JJ Tabane and many others who defected back to the ANC and other political parties.
The reality of it all is that COPE was a bad idea mischievously orchestrated by politically bad people, which went horribly wrong and is now blowing up in their faces and unfortunately also in the faces of the more than one million South Africans who voted for COPE in the last national elections, with the rest of the country and the world as the witnesses.
However the good thing out of this is that the rest of the country and of course the world is seeing the likes of Lekota and Shilowa for what they really and truly are, a bunch of people obsessed with political power, the high and elite life and a bunch of people with big egos who would do anything to be in power including exploiting the good names of the former presidents of the ANC, riding on the back of a well respected priest, playing on emotions of the country's citizens and even exploiting the sympathy some citizens had for the recalled state president.
It does not take a genius to know that COPE was a bad idea from the start as it moved from one disaster to another from its early days, all because of power struggles by people who seems to believe that they were born to lead and that they are the messiah's of South Africans and without them all of us are doomed. They seem to have all of the sudden developed an allergy to being led.
The disasters that besieged COPE range from their selection of the national elections presidency candidate that saw them fetching a priest on the eve of the elections, whilst Lekota (the party's president) claimed not to know that he was not going to be the party's candidate for presidency to their internal factional investigations against each other to the postponed elective conferences which culminated in this week's election of Shilowa as president of the party under a tree after Lekota stormed out of the conference venue followed by his factional supporters who by the way do not recognize Shilowa as their president and still recognize Lekota as their president.
The chief culprits in this game of political power that gets pursued for selfish reasons at all costs are Lekota and Shilowa, they continue to behave like mafia kings who crushes and destroy anything and anyone who stands in their way of becoming the town's Godfather.
Maybe it's a good thing that they exposed themselves early so that good South African can save the country from their good for nothing big egos and consider going back to the ANC or even go to other political parties. As for this two power hungry dictators in the making, I wonder if even the biblical story of the prodigal son would apply to them. I'm sure the ANC is better off with these two out of it.
Ramukumba Khathutshelo is a member of the ANC YL in Sakhisizwe Branch, Ekurhuleni Region. He writes in his personal capacity.
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