There’s hope, yet, to clean up the ANC

The most important attribute of a politician, or anyone aspiring to that position, is not energy or even integrity. It is the ability to see which way the political winds are blowing and to chart one’s own course so you don’t end up in stormy waters, or with a career on the rocks.

There are many members of the ANC who are past masters and mistresses at this sort of chameleon-like behaviour.

And quite a few of them have been on open display in the wake of last year’s watershed elective conference, where Cyril Ramaphosa and his supporters triumphed over the former president Jacob Zuma faction.

So, former police minister Fikile Mbalula, who once likened opponents of Zuma to disciples of Satan, now coos with glee every time the name Ramaphosa is mentioned. The reason is not hard to discern: outside the ANC’s sheltered employment, Mbalula’s tweet-first-think-later style makes him unemployable anywhere else.

But Zuma’s other cronies, who were elected to the ANC’s national structures as part of the “unity” wrought at the elective conference, have been a little bit uppity of late. Foremost among them is KwaZulu-Natal ANC strongman Sihle Zikalala, who stuck his neck out at the recent KZN provincial ANC conference and asked the party to reconsider its ban on members wearing party regalia in demonstrations of support at Zuma’s ongoing court appearances.

Only days later, though, Zikalala backtracked in the manner of a naughty schoolboy after a roasting in the principal’s office. He declared that the organisation in KZN now accepted the wisdom of not allowing members to wear party colours to support other members on trial for corruption and other charges.

His climb-down brings a glimmer of hope that Ramaphosa will win in his attempts to clean up the ANC and resurrect the party’s integrity.

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