Kader Asmal’s 2009 warning now reality for Mbalula

In October 2009, former minister of education Kader Asmal, spoke out against plans to militarise the police.

He said of the government headed by then president Jacob Zuma: “The new administration is referring to the militarisation of the police… I have this former head of the youth league who aspires to be secretary-general of the ANC. Ha, really, I hope I won’t be alive.”

The former head of the youth league that Asmal was referring to as having made decisions smacking of “low-level political decision-making” was current secretary-general of the ANC Fikile Mbalula.

Mbalula was then deputy minister of police with aspirations of being elected secretary-general of the ANC in Mangaung in 2012.

It indeed came to pass that Mbalula became secretary-general over Asmal’s dead body as the latter had wished, only in 2022.

The ANC held its 113th birthday celebrations in a nondescript venue in Cape Town, the 2000-seater Khayelitsha stadium after failing to book the Cape Town and Greenpoint stadiums due to “incompetence”, according to the DA mayor of Cape Town Geordin Hill-Lewis.

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The office that would be responsible for such bookings in the ANC is led by Mbalula.

Besides accusing Mbalula and the 2009 administration of low-level political decision-making that showed poor political memory, Asmal did not go into specifics of why he wished Mbalula would not be elected secretary-general in his lifetime, but it was clear that he did not rate his leadership very highly.

Is it coincidence then that Mbalula is now in charge of an ANC that has had its lowest national election performance in history, going down to 40%, as opposed to the 65% it polled when Asmal uttered these words?

Besides the embarrassing furore of allowing their government of national unity partners the cheap political point-scoring of exposing their incompetence through a mundane task like booking a stadium in time, Mbalula chose to air his party’s dirty laundry in public when he admonished party veteran Tony Yengeni over his comments concerning the “small” venue that was used.

Mbalula described Yengeni as a “political Casanova” who is a Zuma sympathiser. These are words that are hardly fitting for a person in the office of the ANC’s second most powerful person, however problematic Yengeni has been.

More disturbing and embarrassing for the ANC though has been Mbalula’s lack of tact and political acumen that he has demonstrated around the whole party’s celebrations.

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In the run-up to the gathering, he summoned a crippled man to be paraded for the cameras for the sole purpose of declaring for all to hear: “We will be donating a wheelchair to this man out of our own pockets.”

As if that wasn’t enough, he added: “Do remember that on the occasion of the ANC’s 113th birthday celebrations this is what we did for you.” Not only crass, totally humiliating and embarrassing.

But perhaps reasons for Asmal’s misgivings were there for all to see when the secretary-general chose to use a luxury private yacht to travel to Robben Island, when everyone but the president used common transport.

It is indeed the height of hypocrisy that the head of an organisation that is doing all in its power to identify with the common people, in the same breath demonstrates an uncontrollable thirst for luxury.

The death of the ANC has been resisted by many, but also aided by its top officials.