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Tshwane a top-down disaster

ONGOING MAYHEM: Residents of Mamelodi continued their protest on Tuesday as they barricaded the streets with burning tyres, protesting against the nomination by the ANC of Thoko Didiza as their mayoral candidate for the City of Tshwane Photo Thulani Mbele
ONGOING MAYHEM: Residents of Mamelodi continued their protest on Tuesday as they barricaded the streets with burning tyres, protesting against the nomination by the ANC of Thoko Didiza as their mayoral candidate for the City of Tshwane Photo Thulani Mbele

Tshwane has been burning since Sunday.

Beginning in Atteridgeville, the fire of outrage spread to Mamelodi and Mabopane and the threat of imminent violence sent panic through the office blocks, streets, train stations and taxi ranks of the city centre.

Also read: Tshwane shopkeeper describes being beaten and stabbed in night time robbery

The fire is showing no signs of abating as senior leaders of the ANC, in the person of Aaron Motsoaledi, sent to affected areas on Tuesday, was met with an ultimatum from supporters of the outgoing mayor, Kgosientso "Sputla" Ramokgopa.

Either the national executive committee (NEC) rescinds its decision to "impose" Thoko Didiza or they will ensure Tshwane goes up in flames.

Neither the pleadings of Ramokgopa nor the placations of his rival, his deputy regional chair in Tshwane Mapiti Matsena, achieved much.

How do we account for this mess?

The eruptions we have witnessed this week are to be expected.

The ANC leadership itself has admitted that it expected a fallout but did not anticipate the level of violence and chaos that ensued after the announcement of Didiza as Tshwane mayoral candidate.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe conceded in an interview with the SABC that the provincial structure requested the NEC to discard the names put forward by the Tshwane region.

Provincial leaders cited the intensity of divisions in the region. This was in reference to the factional battles between two groups identified as supporters of Ramokgopa and those of Matsena.

The request is telling.

It was an admission on the part of the provincial leadership that it had failed to nip the crisis in the bud and now wanted Luthuli House to do damage control.

They chose to react rather than pre-empt. The situation in Tshwane is not unique. It is replicated all over the country at regional and provincial levels.

Factionalism has been allowed to flourish, and together with it, its close companion patronage.

For many ANC leaders in government and their supporters, access to the state has been a means to material gain. And those on the outside looking in have seen this.

The ANC is reaping within itself the consequence of failing to create an environment where the economy can thrive. Its own members and leaders are numbered in the millions of unskilled and unemployed.

These are the ones that have come to see councillor posts and mayoral positions as something to kill and die for. They do it because they have been promised some financial benefit from supporting this or that individual.

We are witnessing ANC leaders creating for themselves fiefdoms in regions and provinces and they convince their supporters that they are the only rightful heirs to the leadership. The ANC has allowed this culture to thrive.

Ramokgopa fits neatly into this category. Although he has distanced himself from the calls for him to be retained as mayor - like a good ANC cadre - the violent insistence of his supporters tells us there is more to this than meets the eye.

Perhaps his supporters do know better than the ANC NEC. They have first-hand experience of him. But the ANC ignored them.

In the lead-up to the August 3 elections, the ANC has had a number of firsts.

Knowing that it dominates the political landscape of the country, it chose these elections to give members of communities the opportunity to participate in nominations for candidates.

Of course, the ANC did not discard its principle of democratic centralism, where the decisions of the mother body are binding on all members.

Also, for the first time since democracy, the ANC revealed its mayoral candidates before the elections rather than after.

This demonstrates a commitment to transparency. It also acknowledges that the person who leads matters just as much as the party they come from.

This is all commendable. But the timing of these firsts is just unfortunate.

ANC members, particularly those who have had a decent political education and have been groomed in the culture of the movement, know and accept that what the national leadership decides is binding.

But community members don't play by those rules.

The ANC failed to calculate the risk that the ordinary community members would interpret its culture of top-down imposition of candidates and decisions as making a farce of their participation in the process.

The consequence is that communities are less likely to follow the structures and procedures provided in the ANC constitution to raise their concerns.

More importantly, not being rank and file, they do not conform to the "discipline of cadres" and will not fall neatly into line. It's easy for them to take to the streets - and they've done just that.

The biggest mistake the ANC made was to underestimate the danger of bringing community members, who are themselves desperate for material relief, into the factional politics of the party.

Communities just became prey to the predators in the party who want control of the state at any cost, even innocent lives. And community members have seen an opportunity to grease their own dry and cracking palms.

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