'ANC all about toeing the line'

2007-08-17 20:08

Cape Town - The African National Congress is not a party for the independent-minded, says Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille.

The recent sacking by President Thabo Mbeki of his deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, illustrated what the ANC had become, she said on Friday in her weekly electronic newsletter.

The worst offence you could commit in the eyes of the ANC was not corruption, incompetence or negligence, but failing to toe the party line.

"The simple fact is that Madlala-Routledge was relieved of her job because she was too independent-minded.

'ANC collective'

"She has learnt the hard way that she may speak if her conclusions coincide with the ANC leaders' doctrines, which are conflated with the interests of the Party and the country."

The primary reason given by Mbeki for acting against Madlala-Routledge was that she was "not a team player", nor able to work "as part of a collective".

"For Mbeki, and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the 'ANC collective' must abide by the views of its leadership, which take precedence over the available evidence and individual conscience."

Zille said unless Madlala-Routledge had no understanding of her party's founding ideology, she must have known she could expect no mercy for stepping out of line.

"Despite its roots in non-racialism, the ANC has increasingly become a racial nationalist movement, proceeding from the assumption that individuals are irreversibly aligned to or even 'owned' by groups, specifically race groups, and that the leading cadres within the group are endowed with special insights - the 'vanguard', to use the well-known Leninist term - who thus determine what is right for everyone else.

"The progress or prospects of individuals depend on their race and their links to power-brokers - not on personal attributes such as intelligence, integrity and hard work.

'Open and honest'

Indeed, there is little connection between effort and outcome in this group-based approach, controlled by the vanguard few.

"In a vanguard party, where individuals are owned by the group, the group leader lays down the line and everyone else falls in - or runs the risk of being punished, as we have so clearly seen," she said.

Madlala-Routledge had been quoted as pinning her hopes on an "open and honest" leader taking over the ANC.

"She clearly still pins her hopes on her belief that the ANC's problem is merely pilot error, not the design of the aircraft.

"I predict that in the next decade we are likely to see many more Madlala-Routledges having the same misconception and working to change their party from within... ," said Zille.

- SAPA