In an important analytical article on Daily Maverick, the columnist Ranjeni Munusamy gave warning to South Africa last Friday of a coming invasion of the Constitution by the Executive.

Ranjeni Munusamy knows President Jacob Zuma as a journalist from when she "set up and moderated the Friends of Jacob Zuma website" after he was sacked as Deputy President in 2005 and then charged with corruption.

Describing herself vividly as a "survivor of the Salem witch trials" with "the scars to show it," the title of her article was: "Coming soon: Survivor ANC - featuring extreme disciplinary action and fatal subtraction." It is worth reading the article in full.

I will reproduce several paragraphs from her article, and present my interpretation along the way in square brackets. Ms Munusamy points out likely future consequences to flow from the Mangaung conference as follows:

"In Mangaung, the ANC constitution was amended to further strengthen internal disciplinary processes to make it easier to quell dissent. Disciplinary action will now be instituted against any ANC member, office bearer or public representative 'doing any act or making any utterance which brings or could bring or has potential to bring, or as a consequence thereof brings, the ANC into disrepute.'

"There is particular focus on members who challenge the party and its decisions publicly, particularly through the courts."

[Note here President Zuma's intent to block access by ANC members to the courts. Since 1994, under the new Constitution, ANC members have had equal rights along with all other citizens to unfettered access to the courts. This right is now to be removed from them. In future there is to be restricted right of access to the courts. A strange new form of segregation has been introduced into the ANC constitution at Mangaung, at odds with the letter and the spirit of the nation's interim Constitution of 1993, made final in 1996. It is a move weirdly reminiscent of the apartheid era, with its separate facilites marked "Net vir Blankes", now revived in amended form so as to read: "Access to the courts for non-ANC members only." In a monstrous inversion of South African history, a cage has been erected around the ANC, in this case reserving privilege to slavish insiders.]

Ranjeny Munusamy continues:

"In his closing address in Mangaung, Zuma said the following:

" 'Through political education and cadre development as well as decisive action against ill-discipline, we will be able to root out all the tendencies that we have identified over the years. These include factionalism, the sowing of disunity and confusion within the movement, the use of money to buy members, positions or influence in the organisation, the hurling of insults or even worse, the attacks on members of the ANC.

" 'We will be able to deal with the comrades who disrupt ANC meetings and those who want the ANC to be now run on technicalities and through the courts. We will be building cadres who respect actions taken by the movement to enforce discipline against others, who know the implications of working with members who have been expelled from the organisation, assisting them to undermine the organisation.'

" 'There must be consequences for such ANC members,' he went on to say.

"Zuma reiterated the sentiments in last weekend's ANC anniversary rally in Durban, saying the party would prioritise organisational discipline and 'eradicate the alien tendencies that have crept into our movement over the years'."

Munusamy goes further:

"The other structure on the target list is the ANC provincial leadership in Limpopo, who were also the ringleaders in the campaign to oust Zuma at Mangaung. Rumours have been rife for several months that the ANC's national leadership intends dissolving the Limpopo provincial executive committee."

 [Note the clear implication here that local democracy in the ANC is threatened with being brought to an end. Since the end of apartheid, nothing in the period of the Mbeki presidency went anywhere near so far in an attack on democracy.]

Munusamy continues:

"The ANC has now deployed an NEC team of Zuma heavies to the province with the obvious objective of crushing dissenters and purging possible troublemakers.

"Among those in the team is SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande and other key Zuma supporters, including Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, National Union of Mineworkers president Senzeni Zokwana, Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi, SA National Civics Organisation president Ruth Bhengu and former National Intelligence Agency director-general Billy Masetlha. The composition of the team is a ready-made attack squad and confrontation with the Limpopo leadership is inevitable."

 [One notes here a number of links in this "NEC team of Zuma heavies". These include:

(a) The Stalinist and anti-democratic political heritage of SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande.

(b) A strong presence of isiZulu-speakers with a base in KwaZulu-Natal in this "ready-made attack squad" under command of the State President - himself an isiZulu-speaker - sent to interfere with brutal force from above to crush the democratic political process in a distant province where a majority of residents as well as ANC members are not native isiZulu-speakers. In contravention of the founding principle of the ANC and of the Constitution, this will be widely perceived among ANC members and others as a tribalist act of suppression, reviving ancient historical fears and greatly accelerating tribal divisions throughout the country.

(c) The presence of former NIA director-general Masetlha in this Limpopo "attack squad" will revive grim and fearful memories of the method of rule of Mbokodo, "the grindstone": the ANC's Stasi-tutored intelligence agency in exile, used as an instrument for suppression of democratic discussion in its camps in Zambia, Angola and Tanzania. State President Zuma was deputy director of Mbokodo from 1987 until 1993.

(d) Senzeni Zokwana, the NUM president, was so little trusted by the miners at Marikana that they "chased (him) away" on 15 August last year, the day before the massacre.

 (e)  Ruth Bhengu was described in City Press (13 January) as "a Travelgate fraudster who ripped off Parliament's travel scheme to the tune of R43 000. She was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, suspended for three years, and ordered to pay a R45 000 fine. In August last year, Parliament's ethics committee found that Bhengu was involved in a deal that had a potential conflict of interest. As chairperson of the transport portfolio committee, Bhengu entered into a deal with the SA National Taxi Council to supply oil to the taxi industry."]

Ranjeni Munusamy makes a very significant further observation, which deserves especially careful inquiry. She writes:

"Others also on the disciplinary hit list are dissenters in the Free State and the North West who took the ANC to court, which embarrassed the party ahead of the Mangaung conference.

"At the ANC rally last Saturday, Zuma had this to say to members of his organisation: 'We drew a line against ill-discipline at the National General Council in 2010. Anyone who crosses that line will face the consequences'."

I will deal with the reference here to "dissenters in the Free State...who took the ANC to court, which embarrassed the party ahead of the Mangaung conference."

With great respect to Ranjeni Munusamy for her valuable and informative article, I must protest that the language she uses here is inaccurate and prejudicial, contrary to the specific meaning of her article.

These so-called "dissenters" to whom she refers took the pro-Zuma leaders of the ANC provincial executive committee in Free State to the Constitutional Court, winning a historic ruling on 14 December proving it was this ruling faction - not themselves - which, in the language of the court, used "unlawful and invalid" methods to falsify ANC democratic processes in the province. They proved it is this pro-Zuma faction that is the "dissenter", both to internal ANC democratic practice and to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. The Constitutional Court ruled effectively that it is these "unlawful and invalid" methods of executive interference in local branch and provincial elections that have "embarrassed the party."

We have here a constitutional crisis.

When the State President describes those who secure a judgement from the Constitutional Court which demands adherence to constitutional practice as guilty of  "ill-discipline" and of "alien tendencies", and threatens to refuse right of access to the courts to party members, he infringes on their constitutional rights. He is elevating "unlawful and invalid" procedures in the ANC and his own position as head of the Executive over the right of the judiciary to fair and equal access from all citizens, irrespective of party, bar none.

A huge gulf has opened up within the ANC, of vital importance to every citizen.

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