ANC succession debate is everyone’s business

The ANC needs to keep in that it isn't having a private party somewhere. Who it chooses will determine everyone's fate.

Presidential hopefuls Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa.

There are those who would have South Africans believe the change in the internal leadership of the ruling party is none of our business.

But that’s as absurd as suggesting that only ANC members need to concern themselves with the succession debates within the ruling party. In case some people aren’t aware, it’s worth reminding them that in the last national elections in 2014, the ANC received a mandate to govern this country from more than 11 million voters.

That’s 10 million more people than the ANC has as members. It’s pretty rich of anyone to suggest those 10 million people have no right to voice an opinion on who must succeed the man they voted into power.

Even more bizarre is the man who was a beneficiary of non-ANC members voting for him to pronounce on what he refers to as “traditions of the ANC”.

Yes, the ANC has traditions and culture unique to it but using those to stifle debate on who the next possible leader of South Africa will be is “mischievous”, as trade union federation Cosatu has indicated.

When a leader benefits from a system and then criticises and distances himself from it, that’s called hypocrisy. But then again, maybe we shouldn’t expect more than that from certain “leaders”.

That the ANC will govern South Africa post-2019 is a moot point. But if the 2016 local government elections have taught us anything, it is that no one is anointed to rule “until Jesus comes”.

Because of the uncertainty around who will govern, it is worth our while, as citizens, to debate and deliberate on whoever we choose.

It is certainly one of the shortcomings of our world-admired constitution that we don’t get to elect who we want as our president directly. Having witnessed what successive presidents have done behind the protection offered by their political parties, it is my greatest wish that we’ll one day amend our constitution to pick our president separately.

There is a despondency that goes with the knowledge that possible candidates for South Africa’s next president are limited to Mmusi Maimane, Julius Malema, Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Imagine being able to recall Trevor Manuel to stand for president or, as someone suggested on social media, calling on principled people such as Joel Netshitenzhe to put their best foot forward and lead this country out of this period of a lack in political direction and void promises on economic growth.

What if we could come face-to-face with a Ramaphosa – who is not restrained by the need to observe some unwritten rules of his party about pretending that he is not hankering after the presidential seat – when we know he would not be deputy president if he didn’t think he was fit to be president.

When the man who had the longest presidential campaign in recent ANC history claims we must censor ourselves from discussing the future of our country, we must reject that with the contempt it deserves. We must debate on whoever we wish to debate.

When the time is right, we’ll even weigh in on who should lead the DA and the EFF. Our land requires that we do.