Zuma has failed to give ordinary members a say- ANC branches must stand up to leaders

One of the rallying points in 2007, when President Jacob Zuma was elected, was to take the ANC back to its members.

Under former president Thabo Mbeki's leadership, many felt power was centralised. The provincial and regional leadership, as well as ordinary members, felt isolated from the Presidency.

Most members blamed it on the powers that were given to Mbeki in 1997 to appoint premiers and mayors.

At the ANC national conference in Polokwane in 2007 these powers were taken away from the Presidency and given back to provincial and regional structures that now appoint premiers and mayors respectively.

At that conference in Polokwane, then secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe stood up to remind the then chairman, Mosiuoa Lekota, that the gathering was a summit of branches and not of leaders.

This demonstrated that the branches were not being taken seriously. However, since his election Zuma has been talking about giving branches more powers.

Now, eight years later, the ANC is still talking about giving its ordinary members power.

The party admitted at the weekend, during its national general council (NGC), that the leaders are still dictating to branches what should happen in the ANC.

Zuma's ANC has achieved the opposite of what it committed to in Polokwane. Provincial and regional leaders have greater influence than the branches.

It has been the norm that the regional and provincial leaders will pronounce on who should be elected for positions before the branches have an opportunity to contemplate the question.

Provinces and regions produce lists that are then sent to the branches for deliberation.

The branches have become weaker over time, which is why they can be captured by influential leaders with money.

This weakness was best demonstrated by the secretary-general's report to the NGC that showed branch membership tends to go up ahead of national conferences, but membership numbers decline between conferences.

For instance, going to the ANC conference in Mangaung in 2012, the membership for KwaZulu-Natal was 331820, but at the weekend it stood at 158199. The trend is also visible in other provinces.

Isolating branches has given prominence to personality politics and factions in the ANC.

Members are vying for power, with personal enrichment as the primary motivator.

Branches seem to be significant only at elections because they are used as voting fodder.

And so the plan to give more powers to branch members is more relevant than ever. It is branches that should decide who should lead them, and not party leaders.

The NGC addressed the issue of influential lobby groups in the party because these threaten to hijack the party.

In its declaration at the end of the weekend meeting, the ANC said branch delegates should vote according to their branch mandate at elective conferences, and that the practice of consolidating preferences at regional or provincial level must end.

It said it would confront the practice of factionalism. The party agreed that the formation of lobby groups and the promotion of slates should be regarded as offences worthy of disciplinary procedures.

But as long as the branches continue to be weak, giving them more powers will not make a difference.

Zuma and his collective need to strengthen the branches, otherwise their powers will remain on paper only. If they are not strengthened, slates will continue to exist but will go underground. It will be difficult for the ANC to trace who authored the lists.

The obsession with elections was displayed in Mangaung when most delegates left after Zuma and his collective were elected and did not remain for the policy discussions.

If most delegates leave straight after elections, it leaves policy to be debated and captured by the elite in the ANC.

The past decade will be remembered as a decade of decline, and history will judge Zuma's leadership for its failure to deliver a strong ANC - meaning strong branches.

Branches can be strengthened by allowing them to pronounce first on who should lead them. They have to be given the space to monitor that policies are being implemented and have the confidence to hold the leadership and those in government to account.

At the moment the branch members are ordinary members and are at the mercy of those in power.

The ANC should consider building a party intelligence that will inform it about what is happening on the ground. But this can only work if there is unity in the party, otherwise such intelligence will serve the interests of factions.

So far, the ANC is good at diagnosing its problems. It always adopts good policies to deal with them but is ineffective in implementing its decisions.

Giving branches power was a big part of Zuma's promise in 2007, but it will be impossible to achieve this in the two years before the ANC's elective conference in 2017.