Sorry Ramaphosa, ANC’s destiny is another split

As can be seen, splits, breakaways and unhappy departures are part of ANC tradition.

FILE PICTURE: Luthuli House. Picture: Ziphozonke Lushaba.

ANC unity is a myth, trotted out at convenient intervals to rally the gullible.

For example, presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa recently told Moody’s rating agency, “We will not split. We are not a splitting organisation,” according to reports.

Ramaphosa is trying to calm investors. Yet his reassurance is flimsy.

Before we look at current fractures in the organisation, consider some significant past separations.

Contrary to what Ramaphosa says, the ANC is indeed a splitting organisation. Here are examples: the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the Congress of the People (Cope), and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). All three came about because of splits from the ANC.

Significantly, both the Cope and EFF breakaways occurred during Jacob Zuma’s presidency of the ANC.

Indeed, even now, he is responsible for most of the divisions within the ANC and the broader alliance that includes the SA Communist Party and labour federation Cosatu.

When observing the destruction he continues to wreak, it is not unreasonable to assert that Zuma is the most divisive figure in South Africa’s struggle history.

For a while, that label may have belonged to Robert Sobukwe, leader of an Africanist group which left the ANC to form the PAC in 1959.

Later, there were ANC rivalries and factions during the long exile years, but the next most publicised split saw the launch of Cope in December 2008. Its leading founders, Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George, had all been prominent in the ANC.

And, in case anyone has forgotten, the EFF was formed in July 2013 by former ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema and former ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu. Ramaphosa cannot have forgotten.

He chaired the ANC’s national disciplinary committee of appeal, whose final decision led to Malema’s expulsion from the ANC.

When he claimed that the ANC was not a splitting organisation, Ramaphosa was speaking in Rustenburg at a commemoration for former SACP general secretary, Moses Kotane, who died in the Soviet Union in 1978.

Ramaphosa may not have been aware that Kotane himself was a “splitter”, for many years. SAhistory.org.za records that: “In 1928, Kotane joined the African National Congress but left it, considering it weak and ineffectual.”

As can be seen, splits, breakaways and unhappy departures are part of ANC tradition.

So when Ramaphosa says, “We won’t allow the ANC to split,” he is indulging in wishful thinking. Contesting for the ANC presidency, he would like to take over a unified organisation.

However, the ANC is divided over Zuma’s fate, and over who should replace him.

There are divisions over the so-called intelligence report that may or may not have led Zuma to dismiss Pravin Gordhan as finance minister.

There is no unanimity over Zuma’s latest Cabinet reshuffle. The party does not speak with one voice over Brian Molefe’s reappointment as Eskom boss, and so on.

Greed has rent the ANC asunder, and no one can put it back together. Not even Ramaphosa. Further splitting is inevitable.

But we don’t yet know what new formations will emerge.