Is The Party Over?
Oscar van Heerden
Jacana
Review: Voox Sonandzi
So it is that political rivals of the ANC predict the demise of the party as South Africans go to the polls this week.
Since none of us possess a crystal ball, we will only cross that bridge once we get there.
Not even sangomas seem to have all the answers to the question author Oscar van Heerden asks in his latest offering, Is The Party Over?
I haven’t yet read any of his earlier works: Consistent or Confused: The Politics of Mbeki’s Foreign Policy 1995- 2007; and Two Minutes To Midnight: Will Ramaphosa’s ANC Survive?
I cannot help but notice that Van Heerden writes painfully slow, with not a thrilling pace at all. Perhaps this is because he is being careful with his writing or that he is a fully-fledged member of the ANC, and thus has to tip-toe with caution, in order not to upset any of the factions that have come to define the 112-year-old organisation.
The book contains 12 painstaking chapters, some of which contain more questions regarding the soul of the organisation. And whether the author himself answers these adequately depends on which side of the fence the reader sits on.
Van Heerden is also a respected academic and political analyst.
What piqued my interest is the revelation in the prologue that President Cyril Ramaphosa did indeed want to resign in the aftermath of the Phala Phala exposé and especially a week before the party’s December 2022 conference.
I suppose every leading politician has their own inner circle; that Northern Cape premier, Zamani Saul, is/was this close to Ramaphosa as to reveal the true story behind the president’s intended resignation is also revealing on its own. Saul played his cards to his chest all along, until the time he called Van Heerden over for a “chat”. As for Ramaphosa’s resignation, it is a fact of history that he was persuaded otherwise.
And then there is chapter seven, which deals largely with Deputy President Paul Mashatile and his rise to power. Oh, the shenanigans that pave the road to power.
Although being in a powerful position was not new to him, it would seem that, according to some people’s logic, there is the phenomenon of “less power”, which leads one to seek “more power”.
Consider this; we have always been told that the position of secretary general (SG) of the ANC surpasses all positions in the organisation. So that after Ace Magashule the incumbent SG was removed, for his own shenanigans, it fell on his deputy, Paul Mashatile, to assume the mantle. Mashatile was now both SG and deputy SG. Still that was not enough for him. He now wanted to be deputy president of the country and ultimately president.
Van Heerden has a large base of sources, I think, because of his work and inner workings within the governing party. And it is good that he protects his sources but can let us in on their thoughts and knowledge of the organisation, which is the ANC.
Granted, elections are this week, but for Van Heerden, the party is not over yet, and the ANC will not garner anything less than 50% of the vote.
He concedes, though, that the party, has to do a lot more than just pay lip service to service delivery, corruption and load shedding.
The book is revealing to us outsiders to the ANC. It is the pace of the author in writing this book that made me put it down now and again. It’s a good read though.