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President Zuma’s speech on the occasion of the ANC’s 99th anniversary reflects an organisation so deeply divided, that its leaders can only enforce “discipline” through outdated Marxist-Leninist ideology – “democratic centralism”, a Soviet-style “vanguard” party, cadre deployment, and increased party control over people’s lives.

This is the disturbingly anti-democratic thread that runs through President Zuma’s speech from start to finish, and should ring loud alarm bells for all South Africans. It reflects the ascendancy of militant hardliners in the ANC.
Quoting Moses Mabhida, a former leader of the South African Communist Party, President Zuma described the ANC as “the Parliament of all the people of the country”, thereby underscoring his previous statements that the ANC is more important than the constitution. In doing so, he denigrated the constitutional checks and balances that a multi-party system and independent institutions provide to limit power abuse by the governing party.

President Zuma’s repeated commitment to outdated and repressive Marxist ideology will also undermine his stated aim of “job creation through meaningful economic transformation”. The policy programme he espoused today has led only to economic decline and mass impoverishment wherever it has been implemented.

The President is under the illusion that South Africa has a uniformly functional state apparatus, capable of leading economic development and “transformation”. The truth is that the administration – across all three spheres of government where the ANC governs – has been profoundly weakened by cadre deployment. And yet President Zuma today recommitted the ANC to cadre deployment in the media, in tertiary institutions and in “key strategic positions in the state as well as the private sector”. He went further, saying that “we place a high premium on the involvement of our cadres in all centres of power”!

Cadre deployment poses a grave risk to independent institutions, and indeed our constitutional order itself. It is a means of extending the ANC’s patronage network to control all institutions of the state and civil society, and enrich the politically connected network of the party’s ruling clique. In this context, President Zuma’s commitment to fighting corruption rings hollow indeed.

The President indicated that foreign ownership of land would be outlawed, while ANCYL leader Julius Malema again called for “nationalisation” as the key economic mechanism for fighting poverty. These statements will only undermine the investor confidence that is so badly needed to drive economic growth and job creation. President Zuma’s need to pander to the ANCYL was reflected in his statement that it is the “breeding ground for the future leadership of our movement” as was his sycophantic congratulations to “the youth” for “hosting the successful world festival of youth and students”. This gathering was, in fact, a R69-million waste of money that degenerated into organisational chaos.

We welcome the President’s proposal to convert loans to bursaries for poor students that succeed against the odds, but these commitments will be still-born unless the ANC outgrows its outdated political philosophy that will only destroy prospects for sustained economic development and poverty alleviation.

President Zuma’s speech reflects the delusion, division and ideological backwardness that characterise the ANC today. Denial of South Africa ’s reality, as part of a competitive global economy, as well as the “closed, crony control” of the dominant clique of the ruling party, will prevent our country from fulfilling its great potential. All South Africans will be the losers.