POLITICAL NEWS - It has emerged that former President Kgalema Motlanthe may be breaking away from the African National Congress (ANC) to form his own organisation or political group amid the neverending turmoil within the governing party.
North West Professor and political analyst Andre Duvenhage spoke to The Citizen on Tuesday about the current political and economic climate in the country under the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa.
Duvenhage said Ramaphosa needs to get proper control over the ANC and stabilise the forces within the party.
He said there is a lack of decisive leadership by Ramaphosa and that he is functioning as an agent of the ANC instead of providing the type of independent transformational leadership the country needs at the moment.
“At the moment, the governing party at least at the national and provincial level is of such a nature that it is conflict-ridden, its factionalism, there’s literally no order. They are working against each other, they are killing each other, it is chaos and disorder.”
Duvenage is not the only analyst likening Ramaphosa to a mere ANC agent, last week political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki painted a scathing picture of Ramaphosa’s leadership, also labelling the president as a mere agent.
“He was never a leader. He is an apparatchik or an agent of the party but he presents himself as a leader. He’s not a leader – if you put him next to Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and even Jacob Zuma,” Mbeki said.
Kgalema Motlanthe planning an exit strategy?
“I just had an interview, a guy was telling me and I am giving it on the basis he gave it to me, that Kgalema Motlanthe is on the way to breaking away from the ANC, establishing his own group and his own structures,” Duvenhage said.
Duvenhage said Ramaphosa is probably going to win the ANC election when the party holds its elective conference in December.
“But it’s going to be a weakened ANC, there will be a lot of conflicts. I don’t think we have seen the end of what happened in KZN…I am not sure that the ANC going to win the 2024 elections, it is highly likely that we will get a local government type of trajectory where they achieve a lower than a 50% absolute majority which brings us into the framework of coalition politics.”
Meanwhile, Duvenhage said Motlanthe may not be the only ANC member that leaves Ramaphosa out in the cold.
He said it won’t be a surprise if ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile drifted away from Ramaphosa for a while because that’s his habit towards an ANC election as that is his way of pursuing self-interests within the party.
“He deviated away from Ramaphosa before Nasrec [the organisation’s 2017 elective conference] but drifted back after Nasrec.
“For him, there are political and self-interests to pursue. He knows there is horse-trading about to happen during the ANC conference election and that horse-trading will determine who becomes president and deputy president.
Duvenhage said Ramaphosa is more of a trans factional leader making compromises at every opportunity without a clear vision and a complete lack of strategic vision and leadership.
