Save for several years after his unceremonious ouster as head of State, triggering what some have described as an understandable sulk, former President Thabo Mbeki has never been one to mince his words, even if his outspokenness is at the expense of the governing African National Congress (ANC), a party he joined as a teenager and to which he devoted his entire life, ending up as its leader.
In one of his most recent public criticisms of the ANC, in August this year, Mbeki made it clear he won’t campaign for the party in the run-up to next year’s elections. Speaking at an event hosted by the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs at the University of South Africa, in Pretoria, he said: “When you say I must campaign next year, to say to people, ‘Vote ANC’, how am I going to do that when I know very well that the branch of the ANC in this constituency is led by a criminal?”
The ANC itself has admitted that it has had within its ranks leaders and other senior members who have sold their souls to the devil and have no qualms about engaging in corrupt behaviour. This is why its post- Jacob Zuma leadership placed party renewal at the top of its agenda when it took over in December 2017. Clearly, that includes cleansing the organisation of ‘criminal comrades’ (to quote former National Director of Public Prosecution Bulelani Ngcuka), especially in its top echelons.
Indeed, evidence presented at the State Capture Commission of Inquiry showed that several past and present senior ANC members – including Ministers, MPs and other higher-ups – are crooked but none have faced the music.
Would anyone blame Mbeki for baulking at campaigning for the party come election time?
In an indirect response to the former head of State, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the ANC’s national executive committee last month that renewal would be a long process instead of a “one-day event”, insisting that the process was irrevocable and irreversible.
That Ramaphosa desires to lead a corruption- free ANC is beyond doubt. But the thing is, it’s now six years since party members – and South African voters in general – were promised that the party was reinventing itself as a squeaky-clean outfit.
Perhaps Ramaphosa & Co might want to listen to what the experts say about organisational change – not just any change but change that’s effective. By ‘effective’ I mean change that ensures the organisation is able to meet its goals; for a political party such as the ANC, these include retaining or increasing popular support so that it continues to call the shots in the political arena.
One expert whose views may be worthwhile listening to is John Kotter, a leadership professor at the prestigious Harvard Business School, who stresses the need for urgency, the creation of what he calls a coalition within the organisation with enough power to lead the change, the creation of a new vision to direct the change, and robust communication around that vision.
There doesn’t seem to be any urgency if, six years later, there are no major changes to point to, and one cannot easily identify the ‘coalition’ that Ramaphosa is working with to deliver the promised change, with some of those implicated in State capture still serving in senior leadership positions. The vision for a revamped ANC may be there, but frequent, robust communication around the strategies to deliver that vision and the implementation of the strategies is missing.
As behavioural scientists tell us, the above four steps only serve to ‘unfreeze’ the old way of doing things. More action is needed, and Kotter prescribes empowering organisational members to act on the vision; planning for short-term wins (which should be publicised, instead of merely stating that renewal is a long-term process); consolidating the short-term wins; and reinforcing the changes by demonstrating the relationship between new behaviour and organisational success.
I’m afraid some voters may not be convinced the ANC is a transformed organisation if it continues on its current trajectory.