17 December 2007
Polokwane — President Thabo Mbeki has been humiliated by some in the party he has led for the past decade. They openly broke with tradition and publicly bayed for him to go.
Mbeki was left in no doubt at the start of the ANC's watershed national conference in Polokwane on Sunday that his days as party leader might indeed be numbered, as some delegates called for change and were hostile to him and those perceived as his allies.
Jacob Zuma's trademark Umshini wami was also the unofficial conference anthem, sung at every opportunity - including after Mbeki finished his more than two-hour-long political report-back.
But Mbeki's supporters tried to hit back, caucusing on the sidelines on Sunday night.
Upset by the behaviour of delegates, the Eastern Cape complained to the national executive committee.
The Star was told later that the NEC was to meet on Sunday night to discuss how to manage the rowdy elements.
The crisis meeting was also expected to discuss contentious issues such as election procedures and factionalism.
Meanwhile, ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota was under fire from both sides.
Mbeki's supporters felt he had been too lenient with ill-disciplined delegates, whom they labelled howlers, while those in the Zuma camp questioned his impartiality.
The mood at the ANC conference - the disunity, public ill-discipline and open defiance from delegates - was a marked departure from previous conferences.
It elicited a special word of warning from veteran treasurer-general Mendi Msimang, who tried to call delegates to order.
Even an intervention from ANC legend Nelson Mandela was ignored. In a recorded message, he acknowledged divisions in the 96-year-old party and called for unity.
He said: "You are faced with very important decisions at this conference, but the ANC has been the leading political movement in our country for almost a century exactly because its members were always called upon to make serious decisions for the people and the country."
While there were signs of deep divisions in the ANC, "differences and tensions in an organisation are not unusual or abnormal.
"It is the manner in which we deal with those differences that matters."
He reminded delegates that South Africa's conflict was peacefully resolved "because we, as an organisation, were able to sit down and negotiate with our enemies and adversaries".
While Mandela talked peace, it appeared Mbeki's fight-back strategy to be re-elected for a third term had backfired, and only a surprise electoral victory could restore his battered authority.
His invocation of the organisation's founding fathers and the party's blueprint on good leadership - Through the Eye of the Needle - did not stop the heckling.
Mbeki made an impassioned plea to delegates to see through the lies and distrust caused by those "obviously hostile to our movement", who have sought to divide the leadership through the hoax email saga and the so-called Special Browse Mole report.
The president urged delegates to "save the ANC and our revolution" and spoke about the negative outcomes facing the organisation.
He spoke about confronting the "virus" that had infected the movement, and said part of the problem was that the party, in its search to grow membership, had forsaken quality for quantity.
"During the years since our liberation in 1994, certain negative and completely unacceptable tendencies have emerged within our movement, which threaten the very survival of the ANC as the trusted servant of the people it has been for 96 years."
While Mbeki spoke of the propagation of "outright falsehoods intended to discredit our leadership", ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe put the blame on the party's top brass, saying it failed to provide leadership and sowed disunity and factionalism.
Mbeki also reminded the conference to think about the impact of the new acrimony on the party's ability to win elections in 2009, and whether it would still be united at its centenary in 2012.
Among the issues he wanted tabled was whether the party really was divided.
Mbeki went on the offensive, lashing out at those he described as fighting for state power and resources.
The first signs of strife emerged minutes into the start of the conference when the ANC Youth League said it wanted ballots to be counted manually and not electronically.
With this, the league's Sihle Zikalala opened a can of worms, his idea gaining popular support from the floor.
Eventually the adoption of the conference programme was unresolved and left to be discussed in the credentials report scheduled for much later.
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