[DEBATE] : FM on new party

[Alan Murphy]

I thought the DA was coaxed to regurgitate the NP, which was then greedily
devoured by the ANC as a seemingly nutritious morsel after a metabolic
transformation from Separate Development to Fair Discrimination, while
maintaining the concept of Preferred Population Groups.



The 'popularly elected' president thing is a prestidigitator's misdirection
– keep your eyes on the beautiful assistant while we dip into your pockets.
Which party will forward a presidential candidate on a non-hierarchical
platform promising to devolve the unaccountable executive powers to the
people at community levels?



Why leave all the blame with Zuma, why not remember PW for changing SA from
a prime minister system to un-'popularly elected' executive president
system?

Alan


On 10/23/08, grinker at mweb.co.za <grinker at mweb.co.za> wrote:
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> 24 October 2008
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> POLITICS
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> Casting a wide net
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> By Carol Paton
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> Let's first agree on where we are going, says Shilowa
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> A favourite exercise in primary school art class is to ask children to draw
> an imaginary creature, conjured up from weird and wonderful combinations of
> animal characteristics.
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> The national convention proposed by ANC dissidents Mbhazima Shilowa and
> Mosiuoa Lekota is similarly a work of the imagination: what kind of animal
> will it be?
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> WHAT IT MEANS
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> Voters are not all ANC members
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> The split looks more class-based
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> Shilowa has started with the first strokes. The convention will be open to
> all, including parties or groupings perceived to be racially exclusive, such
> as trade union movement Solidarity, with its whites-only history, and the
> Democratic Alliance (DA), which absorbed most of the remnants of the
> National Party.
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> All that will be needed is that participants agree to discuss the matters
> on the agenda: defence of democracy and of the constitution. In particular,
> there are the two issues Shilowa has raised: the reform of the electoral
> system, and the regulation of party funding.
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> "I don't want the convention to be bogged down by headlines which say, for
> instance, Holomisa denied access'. It is better for him to come, if he
> wishes."
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> Invitations will be sent to a combination of constituencies and
> stakeholders. The core market will be people either excluded from the ANC in
> the recent bout of internal contestation in regions and provinces, or who
> were angered by the recall of Thabo Mbeki. There are such pockets in the
> Western Cape, Limpopo, Northern Cape and Free State.
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> Stakeholders include religious organisations such as the SA Council of
> Churches and the SA Catholic Bishops Conference, and business formations
> such as Business Unity SA (Busa) and the Black Management Forum.
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> The open-door policy will also be Shilowa and Lekota's first problem. The
> ANC will make much of the attendance of entities that many black voters
> distrust. The DA, for instance, is regularly smeared at ANC rallies and
> meetings in the Western Cape as a party that wants to bring back apartheid
> and evils such as the pass system.
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> But, says Shilowa, voters will need to look beyond the inevitable
> propaganda. A broad range of groupings might attend the convention without
> sharing identical values and policies. And not all would choose to join the
> political party that is expected to be formed later.
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> "No-one will be blocked from the convention. But when we forge ahead in our
> own political party, the people who will come with us will come not as
> parties but as South Africans, who agree with our platform," says Shilowa.
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> It's a clever plan. Though the ANC "split" may really be a "splinter", when
> numbers of defecting members or branches get totted up at the end of this
> process, the real shift or split is more likely to be in the electorate. The
> ANC knows many voters are disillusioned and disengaged from active politics.
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> And if all opposition parties, including the new one, campaign along a
> similar theme in the next election - in defence of the constitution - then
> the ruling party could get a bigger smack than just one splinter grouping
> could give it.
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> Says Shilowa: "My own view is that it is important to see to what extent it
> is possible for SA to agree on a shared perception of where we are now and
> where we are going. It doesn't mean we will agree on the policies needed to
> get there, but at least we can spend less time arguing about where we are
> going."
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> "Where we are going" could end up as the key issue that distinguishes the
> breakaway party (and most opposition) from the ANC, which continues to talk
> about the "national democratic revolution" in an opaque way that few outside
> its ranks understand.
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> The end-state of the liberation struggle has long been a delicate
> discussion within the ANC alliance. In 2007, for the first time, official
> ANC documents ventured a definition of an end-state society incorporating
> the best elements of a social democracy and a developmental state.
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> But this formulation again obscured differences within the broad church of
> the ANC rather than making them plain. Now that a black opposition party
> with a liberation heritage is about to appear, these differences will come
> out.
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> It is in this context that the likely Shilowa-Lekota party is taking shape.
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> One of the key issues already on the table is the reform of the electoral
> system - in particular, the direct election of the president.
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> Such a change would be anathema to the traditional revolutionary doctrine
> of the ANC alliance, which views the party as a vanguard and its leaders,
> including the president, as party agents who can be recalled should they act
> outside of the party mandate. A party-driven political process is regarded
> as essential to securing a transformation agenda.
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> Shilowa and others are signalling their intention to move away from
> outdated revolutionary dogma, and to engage in politics in a more
> conventional sense.
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> "If all we are interested in doing is [replicating] the ANC, then we
> shouldn't stand for election," says Shilowa. "We have got to broaden our
> base. There are plenty of young men and women, young professionals who feel
> disengaged from politics. The [ denigration of] wealth creation and
> entrepreneurship - unless you do so as part of a particular party - doesn't
> appeal to them."
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> This introduces something that lies just under the surface of the new party
> initiative: while its first mission will be to mop up the disaffected within
> ANC ranks and anyone else who will vote for it, it does seem there is a
> class element to the new party.
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> In time, as the ANC emphasises its national liberation and worker heritage,
> the new party would possibly become more explicitly liberal, as Cosatu boss
> Zwelinzima Vavi predicts: "A black DA."
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> At his announcement of his resignation, Shilowa said individuals might be
> attracted to his party out of anticommunist sentiment. But it will not be
> anticommunist. "In Phillipi, where people burned their ANC membership cards,
> there were members of Cosatu and the SACP who did the same. This is not a
> right-wing mobilisation as [detractors] claim. But we won't shun South
> Africans who are in business, who believe in wealth creation and who aspire
> to be entrepreneurs."
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> For many in the ANC, a class split - somewhat messy and not yet explicit -
> is exactly what is happening. Says a member of the party's national working
> committee: "People don't want to say it, but this is an ideological split.
> We saw it coming over a long period. There have been all sorts of proposals
> and ideas put forward that the ANC should become a small party and leave
> behind the embarrassments of Cosatu and the SACP.
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> "Some of the ordinary people who are running away from the ANC will come
> back... over time the difference will eventually come down to class."
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> Yet before that point is reached there will be many contradictions and
> mixed ideological positions on both sides of the divide, particularly in
> support patterns at the coming election. Personalities and emotions are
> still a powerful factor.
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> Despite the newfound influence of the SACP and Cosatu in the ANC, a
> significant number of accomplished progressives remain in the forefront of
> leadership and policy making. Similarly, there are disaffected communists
> and worker leaders likely to align with Shilowa.
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> The mix will take time to settle. What is clear is that Jacob Zuma will be
> remembered as the ANC president who split the party.
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