Polokwane — Cyril Madlala , editor of KwaZulu-Natal's UmAfrika newspaper, hopes that the new ANC president with a warm heart and time to listen has learned lessons from his predecessor's fate. To comment, click on the box at top right [free sign-up].
The overwhelming rejection of Thabo Mbeki as president of the ANC by delegates to the ANC's 52nd national conference in Polokwane goes some way to indicate that either he employs useless advisers or he ignores their wise counsel.
How else does one explain how he failed so dismally to gauge the mood of anger against his determination to hang on to power for a third term? More importantly, how could he not have been aware that support for his deputy, Jacob Zuma, among ordinary ANC members was across the country and not confined to KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma's home base?
When the ANC branches announced their preferences for leadership positions towards the end of last month, and nominated delegates to represent them at the national conference, it should have been clear to Mbeki that he was not as informed as he ought to have been about state of the organisation he leads.
Indeed, in subsequent interviews he and those close to him seemed to suggest that his future as leader of the ANC could still be salvaged at the conference. And so began an intensive anti-Zuma campaign by senior government officials, including Terror Lekota, the ANC national chairman.
By the time we got to Polokwane, the tide of anger against Mbeki had also engulfed those perceived to be anti-Zuma, such as Lekota. It did not help that Mbeki's defenders were drawn mainly from the Cabinet, and were seen to be trying to secure their future job prospects.
It became a battle between the elite, educated and sophisticated class in the membership of the ANC, and the poor in the squatter camps and factories who demanded change and fresh blood in the leadership.
When the nominations suggested that there was unhappiness about Mbeki's style of leadership, so blind was he to this reality that he came to the national conference oozing the arrogance that was complained of: those who found fault with him lacked political education; they were not schooled in the traditions of the organisation; it would be better to get rid of them, he proposed during his two-hour long political report.
When he challenged the conference to answer the question, "What divides the ANC?" a delegate shouted back: "You."
When he asked, "What should we do to address this challenge?" somebody responded loudly: "Step down."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Of course, he could not have brought himself to heed such advice from the grassroots, the branch representatives who constitute the very body of the organisation in whose best interests he purported to act. Treated with such disdain, they were determined to drive an important message to the leadership: you owe your position in government to us, and you should be accountable to us, stupid as you deem us to be.
And so Zuma, a humble and uneducated man with a warm heart and all the time in the world to listen to the concerns of ordinary members, has trounced Mbeki convincingly.
He lacks the sophistication of his predecessor, but he is accessible, too accessible perhaps. That should at least ensure that he and his new team are not as aloof as Mbeki and his team were. It should also mean that they should know when it is time to say goodbye, before they are humiliated as Mbeki has been.
That is unless Zuma too either surrounds himself with useless advisers, or good advisers whose wise counsel he disregards.
