Ramaphosa must address threatening ANC factionalism before it explodes

The ANC’s internal factional struggle is the biggest threat to the safety and security of this country.

The panel which investigated last year’s looting and violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng didn’t say that in so many words, but its recommendation that the divisions “be addressed as a matter of national security now”, was chilling.

The orgy of lawlessness, which originated in KZN and erupted as Jacob Zuma went to jail, would have suited the former president and those in the ANC loyal to him. The initial protests and attacks on trucks and other economic targets were well-planned and co-ordinated via a social media network.

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Whether it was a full-scale “insurrection” as President Cyril Ramaphosa characterised it – and whether the Zuma faction believed it may have eventually toppled the government – is still not clear. That it was what Ramaphosa called “an ethnic mobilisation” does have a ring of truth about it, given that mainly Zulu hostel dwellers in Gauteng set off the protests in that province… and that rioting failed to gain traction outside KZN and Gauteng.

The panel report says intelligence services failed to provide advance warning of the uprising and police then failed to contain it. Everywhere, the administration – from Ramaphosa downwards – was like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights, unable to take action.

The report does not address the ominous possibility that the inaction was more than incompetence and it could have been that some Cabinet members were waiting to see whether the Zuma faction might succeed.

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Clearly, the flames of revolt were fanned by poverty, lack of service delivery and bitterness at the gulf between rich and poor, as well as corruption.

Those ingredients of the South African social tinderbox still remain – and if they are not addressed, another conflagration is only a matter of time.