ANC conference buried the notion of a nonracial party

Either President Cyril Ramaphosa is a coward, or he doesn’t believe in reconciliation as championed by former president Nelson Mandela. Or perhaps Ramaphosa is not a coward. Maybe he is merely hollow.

As ANC veteran Raymond Suttner writes in Daily Maverick: “There is little in the record of Ramaphosa to suggest anything more than a self-indulgent, narcissistic attachment to the idea of being president, a presidency that has little content.”

In 1996, Mandela insisted that South Africa’s anthem be a mix of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and Die Stem.

As Barney Mthombothi wrote: “Once, at a function when Mandela was still president, a black choir left out the Afrikaner parts. He called them back and insisted they sing the whole anthem.”

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Fast forward to the ANC 55th national conference, which wrapped up last weekend. When the anthem was sung, Afrikaans was left out. The same happened at an ANC policy conference in 2017, when Jacob Zuma was president. Neither he nor his then deputy Ramaphosa made any effort to ensure the anthem was completed.

In fact, The Citizen reported at the time that Zuma and Ramaphosa “were seen looking at each other in amusement”. Ja-nee.

No surprise that in 2023 Ramaphosa didn’t do as Madiba would have done. Ramaphosa worsened race relations at the 2023 event when he said: “Don’t fear white people, their time has passed and they no longer have power, their apartheid is gone.”

Given the context, Ramaphosa’s comment highlighted the ANC’s increasing racial exclusivity. The party’s 55th national conference buried the notion of a nonracial ANC which was promoted during the Madiba years. There is no white person in the top seven elected to lead the party for the next five years.

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The party’s new national executive committee (NEC) is not much better. The NEC, the party’s highest decision-making body between conferences, consists of the top seven and a further 80 members.

As analyst Oscar van Heerden told Talk Radio 702: “Whites, Indians and coloureds in South Africa constitute about 21% collectively. In the NEC leadership, there’s less than 5% represented. This is a big, big problem.”

Evidently, judging by their behaviour, Ramaphosa and colleagues do not see racial exclusivity as a problem. Oblivious to the ANC’s racism, they go out of their way to highlight instances where white people are perceived to be behaving in a racist manner.

This descent into racial exclusivity adds unnecessary tensions in tough economic times where we are battered by rolling electricity blackouts and shocking service delivery at every level of government.

Because the ANC is racially exclusive, its official policy of cadre deployment is necessarily skewed towards black Africans.

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Cadre deployment is a common factor in the failure of state-owned institutions and government departments where people are appointed because of political affiliation, rather than merit. If this country is to succeed, cadre deployment will have to be scrapped.

We must also get rid of laws that dictate what races may occupy what positions, The race-obsessed ANC is not the right party to bring these changes.

Only a nonracial party with a reputation for getting things done can fix South Africa.