Johannesburg — DESPITE attempts to paper over the cracks, the African National Congress (ANC) is in crisis - and the crisis is primarily moral.

Those who deny that the ANC's public divisions signal a crisis point out that vigorous difference is a sign of health. But the crisis stems not from the fact that people differ or compete, but that their motives and methods prompt fear among many ANC voters and activists that it has lost its moral moorings.

Commentators may try to convince us that the ANC's divisions are earnest clashes over economic policy or that the feigned outrage over the president's private life is real. But at the grassroots of the society and the ANC, many suspect, with justification, that much of this is really a scrabble for position and the goodies it brings.

The problem is not that people compete for positions - it is that they do so in a way which corrodes politics: media smears are common currency, opponents are vilified or expelled, election results are disputed. And behind all this, many in the ANC fear, is the spectre of money which is allegedly used to win battles and is also the expected reward for victory.

The ANC knows it has a problem - and that it is essentially moral. This is why its National General Council in 2000 bemoaned "careerism, corruption and opportunism". And why it is discussing new rules of political conduct: current thinking is reflected in an article in the ANC journal Umrabulo, which frankly dissects its current failings and suggests remedies. The article contains several ideas for renewing the ANC and for ensuring that people campaign within agreed rules. But it too recognises the moral nature of the crisis: its first proposal is that the organisation must "draw clear lines between right and wrong".

Before the "we are going to the dogs" brigade get excited, the ANC has no monopoly on moral crisis. On the contrary, those within it who see politics as the route to enrichment are merely mimicking what came before 1994 and has persisted after it in a flashy consumption fetish which continues in the face of mass poverty. It was not the ANC that created the reigning culture, which daily tells poor people that human worth is judged by the size of our houses and cars and the cost of our wardrobes.

It is this that convinces some young people in the townships that they will never enjoy respect unless they are rich -- and that, since they cannot gain wealth legally, they had better do so illegally. And it is this legacy of minority privilege which persuades some politicians that full equality means accumulating wealth, not contributing to society.

This is why astute business leaders such as Bobby Godsell have realised that the fight for public sector morality will be futile unless there is a similar battle for private sector morality -- and that the lifestyles of the private but prominent must be a concern too.

But the reality that the ANC is perpetuating a problem rather than creating it does not exempt it from the obligation to fix it. Some black leadership figures are indeed now only doing what white leaders did before them, b ut that is not an excuse -- it is an indictment. The democracy for which the ANC and others fought was meant to end the vices of apartheid, not mimic them.

Can the ANC regain its moral compass?

Many within the movement want it to do that. This is why resolutions are passed condemning the moral malaise, why the exercise which prompted the Umrabulo article was undertaken, why the Congress of South African Trade Unions wants lifestyle audits of public figures, and why the left of the alliance is tapping into a groundswell of public disgust at greed in high places.

The bad news is that the ANC's leadership does not seem to recognise that it has a problem. Rules, such as those suggested in Umrabulo, will be worth nothing unless the ANC leadership sets a clear example -- as Indian leaders did after their country's independence. But the current leadership seems bent on the opposite course.

Instead of embracing lifestyle audits, signalling to voters and ANC activists that they care about public morality, the president and deputy president dismissed the proposal. Their reasons were deeply unconvincing. Yes, ministers already have to declare assets but who knows if they declare them all? Yes, the South African Revenue Service audits lifestyles, but only if it thinks people are not paying their taxes. More importantly, their response signals to voters that the ANC leadership does not care and to the greedy that no one will come after them.

To compound the problem, the president is using legal semantics to defend not declaring his own assets. Even if the law is technically on his side, the message that his finances are none of our business will fuel public cynicism.

Leadership alone will not get the ANC and the country out of its moral mess. But unless leaders are prepared to set an example by supporting tougher action on corruption and agreeing to submit themselves to the relevant tests, we will not begin to overturn our legacy of greed.

Friedman is director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, an initiative of Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.