Sisulu used ANC’S factional template to ‘announce’ candidacy

POLITICAL contestations and the assertion of individual eligibility in partisan politics is not an abstract occurrence.

Power, as well its allure and seduction, plays itself out in a myriad of ways across the globe, at least where governance and political expediency are concerned.

The ANC’S National Elective Conference, alongside its policy conference preceding that, has traditionally been the opportunity for the party, and its structures and branches, to make critical decisions and policy positions on the political and socio-economic orientation of the party.

Over the years, we have witnessed the intellectual brain drain of the ANC and its long-standing ideological traditions. What we see now is what we have come to know as the emergence of two “camps” – the “radical economic transformation” (RET) as well as the custodians of “white monopoly capital” (WMC) – one being described as the anti-colonial vanguards and the other being dubbed as the neo-liberal foot soldiers.

Both of these characterisations, whether true or random misnomers, have been used not for their philosophical and critical theoretical outlook, instead they have been used as the battleground for perverse politicking.

Given this reality, it should surprise us little that Lindiwe Sisulu, a long-standing member of both the National Executive and Legislature since the dawn of democracy, and a member of the ANC’S National Executive Committee, would pseudo-announce her candidacy for the ANC’S power seat using this factional template.

Her characterisation of the Judiciary as “house negroes” and by extension colonised Africans who preside over a neo-liberal Constitution and a widely untransformed socio-economic landscape, is poor decolonial rhetoric which is typical of the RET’S misunderstanding of decolonial thought and practice.

The minister, in her scheming and opportunist utterances, should serve as a reminder of the need for imaginative and critical public discourse which not only intimately understands the workings of contestation, but beyond that, should point us into a direction which does not detract from the critical governance challenges which we have inherited not only from a colonial and apartheid past, but also from this post1994 ANC government.

The ANC government has hallowed the efficiencies of governance institutions and has failed to provide the execution of strategies and policies which they have identified as critical to its envisioned developmental state.

What should be occupying public debate and taking up political airtime in South Africa is not the absurd musings of a long-serving ANC and senior government official who is intimately linked to governance faux pas, and is now positioning herself as the bastion of decolonial thinking.

Rather, our attention should be redirected to finding new ways to concretely build a South Africa with institutions which function for the betterment of the public, promote strategic thought that prioritises and encourage public discourse focusing on finding systemic approaches to governance which inspire confidence in the electorate.

We must begin to anticipate a time where a new social order is built (with or without the ANC), where the public service is characterised by integrity, fiscal prudence and adequate resource distribution, as well as safeguarding constitutional democracy which remains the entry point for the population’s claim to citizenship.

So, Mzansi, let’s not get distracted.