This is an archived copy of my open letter to ANC MPs. It was published in City Press a few days before the no-confidence vote held in Parliament on 8 August 2017. It has been replaced with an open letter to ANC MPs who voted against capture.
Dear ANC NA members
If you’re surprised by this open letter from a member in good standing of the great unwashed, you can read a brief description of the context here. In brief, this letter forms part of a broader project: an open letter to South African democrats.
In the letter to democrats, I come out against secret ballots in parliament. I believe voters should know how their representatives are voting. The crucial upcoming no-confidence vote is likely to be open though, but whether open or secret, I urge you to vote with your conscience, expressing the will of the people instead of that of the captors.[1]
I know, it’s easy for me to say. I’ve seen what the retribution of the captors looks like – comrades who have spent a lifetime in the movement suddenly find all their avenues closed after dissenting. Lately there’s even been death threats against some you,[2] [3] against the backdrop of ongoing political assassinations elsewhere in the country.[4]
However, I believe all of this is part of the last kicks of a dying horse, and that it’s a successful no-confidence motion that can put it out of its misery.
So what makes me think that this time is different from all the previous motions of no confidence?
First because our captors are now entirely exposed. Particularly the Gupta email leak makes it impossible to continue to have reasonable doubt about the veracity of the state capture claims. None of you can reasonably deny it, and I can’t imagine that people who care about their reputation anywhere else than in captor circles could bring themselves to knowingly and directly support state capture.
Second because it’s now increasingly obvious that the ANC NEC is not going to address the issue. Until the NEC meeting in May[5], there was still hope that the NEC would recall the president from the presidency of the country. Now it’s clear that it’s highly unlikely to happen.
One of my “sub-letters” is addressed to the ANC NEC, in order not to skip a step, but I believe the chances are close to zero that they will do something before the December ANC congress, which is likely to lead to another bought election with a victory for the captors – and the sounding of the death knell for the ANC.
So the responsibility for saving the ANC now rests on your shoulders. That’s a major difference from previous no-confidence motions.
Unless I completely overestimate the character of many respected ANC MPs, my guess is that quite a number of you will vote for the removal of the president. Either way, as a politician, this is probably the most defining vote you’ll ever make. There will be your career as a politician before and after the no-confidence motion. Perhaps not immediately, but as the weeks and months and years go by after the motion, that’s probably increasingly what you will be defined by.
You may argue that you are bound by party discipline, just like the opposition, and just like political parties everywhere in the world, and I will agree with you.
I will also agree that the party can probably institute disciplinary procedures against you for voting with the opposition, and can probably succeed in replacing you as an MP, leaving you without an income, or even expelling you from the party. I know I’m asking for very, very much.
But not as much as the people asking you to live with yourself, and with others, after endorsing what is basically the betrayal of the people of our country.
And it’s not as if the alternatives look particularly rosy – less so, in my view. I think most of you will agree that if the ANC continues along its current path, there’s a fair chance that it will lose its majority in 2019. Let’s say it loses by just 1%, at 49%. That would be a reduction of 53 MPs among your ranks, from 249 to 196.
But there’s also a chance that as labour, the SACP, ANC members who resign in the wake of a probably captor victory in December, churches, NGOs, opposition parties and others get their act together to form a broad coalition against a very vulnerable ANC (with slime engulfing the organisation little by little, over months of daily email scandals), support for the organisation could collapse.
So it’s not as if your career as an MP is very secure if you don’t make a stand. And if you don’t make a stand, you’d have the added reputational damage of not making a stand.
If enough ANC MPs support a no-confidence motion though, it could go a long way to ousting the captors and stopping the trend of falling support for the ANC, depending on how the NEC reacts.
My guess is that the NEC will not dare to replace 10, 20, 60, who knows, of their most high-profile leaders. It will be an admission of defeat for the party to replace so many senior leaders, and could trigger a split, something which the captors can ill afford.
But even if they do replace you, I believe you’d be welcomed with open arms in any other political formation of your choice. You have political experience, and you would have proven that you have integrity. There is much work to do before the 2019 elections and democrats will have to raise the funds to do it. And all the seats the ANC is likely to lose in 2019 will go somewhere else.
So while it’s true that the last kicks of a dying horse can still kill you, it’s also not that voting with the courage of your conviction is a dead-end lane, and that voting for the captors is without consequence.
I hope I’d be able to tell my wide-eyed grandchildren the story of the “Magnificent 70” one day, about the 70 or so ANC parliamentarians who stopped the captors in their tracks.
Footnotes
Click on the footnote number to go back to where you were.
[1] Zuma must go, according to latest poll
[2] Khoza death threats receiving urgent attention: Police
[3] ANC dissenters ‘face death threats’
[4] Political assassinations show no sign of letting up in KwaZulu-Natal. Since this report, there has been several more assassinations, and not only in KZN.
[5] Defiant Zuma crushes dissent at ANC NEC meeting, threatens his detractors
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