Is the ANC a political party or a criminal mafia?

At the risk of being flippant at a time of grave crisis within the ranks of our ruling party, we cannot help but see the similarities between this weekend’s online meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee and episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Starring role yesterday went to the organisation’s national spokesman, Pule Mabe. Never very forthcoming at the best of times, Mabe did an insane egg dance in front of journalists when they tried to pin him down about whether suspended secretary general Ace Magashule would be in attendance at the meeting.

“Well everyone, all members of the NEC who are expected to attend the NEC will attend this NEC…”

He kept repeating that refrain, much like the Dead Parrot Sketch by Monty Python, no matter how many times he was asked the question.

It would have been amusing, in a bizarre sort of way, if there was not, clearly, so much at stake in this weekend’s meeting.

Magashule, effectively, attempted a coup against the ANC leadership on Wednesday night by declaring himself still secretary-general, in the face of an official ANC suspension letter and, then, going further, by proclaiming that he, Magashule, was going to suspend president Cyril Ramaphosa.

His mutinous conduct was one of the most egregious cases of ill-discipline within the ranks of the ANC since it was unbanned and its leadership returned to the country in the early 1990s.

It was a gauntlet thrown down to Ramaphosa for the very soul – and future – of the ANC.

If Ramaphosa and his supporters do not immediately clamp down on Magashule – going as far as to expel him from the organisation – they will prove they are not serious about tackling corruption. They will confirm, in the minds of many, that they are not a political party but a criminal mafia.