If the ANC did have a finely tuned step-aside policy, as Thabo Mbeki is suggesting, it would have hugely benefitted the anti-corruption campaign, especially within the state and public sectors, where most of the corruption we have experienced has occurred over the past decade, argues Ebrahim Harvey.
Last week, former president Thabo Mbeki strongly suggested that the ANC go beyond the existing criteria for its step-aside rule.
At the moment, that rule states that if a member of the ANC, in whatever organisational or political capacity, is formally charged with having committed a crime, they must immediately step aside and cease their work and fulfilling their duties until the matter, whichever way, is resolved.
Mbeki argued that even if no charges have been formally made, ANC members who are substantially alleged or strongly suspected to have committed any unlawful act or wrongdoing must immediately step aside until, in one way or another, the matters are resolved. This represents a very significant departure from the current rule, the gist of which is that there is a need to step aside only if formal charges have been laid.
Thus far, the ANC has not responded to Mbeki's suggestion, but it will have to sooner or later because there is much at stake in the matter. Many ANC members who have faced various allegations of wrongdoing and crimes have not stepped aside, and had no intention to do so because they were not yet formally charged.
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Speaking at the Thabo Mbeki African School dialogue at Unisa last week, Mbeki gave an example of a former ANC Free State provincial executive who voluntarily stepped aside even before the ANC, in 2021, enforced the rule while former secretary-general Ace Magashule was facing corruption charges. The executive was alleged to have been involved in taxi wars and in the deaths of several people.
Mbeki told the story of how this former ANC leader in that province decided to resign as a member of the provincial executive in light of the allegations against him even though he was not formally charged.
Mbeki said: "He was saying the mere fact that there was a popular view that [he was] a murderer tarnished the image of the ANC, and therefore [he] must leave.
He never said 'I have not been charged. That is a genuine ANC member. Anyone who says I will only step aside once I am charged, you must know that they are not genuine ANC members.
Although Mbeki's example might be overly simplistic, the point is that, given what has happened many times, when many seriously implicated ANC leaders refused to step aside until they were formally charged, his argument is not only valid, but I hope prompts the ANC to consider reviewing the step-aside rule and make an appropriate modification.
However, it was reported that when reacting to Mbeki's view on the step-aside rule, Professor Sipho Seepe, a University of Zululand political analyst, argued that this would mean President Cyril Ramaphosa should have stepped aside due to the Phala Phala saga.
Seepe was referring to the report of an independent parliamentary panel which investigated the Phala Phala scandal - wherein multimillions of undeclared foreign currency were stolen from the president's private farm in Limpopo in 2020, and the clandestine events to investigate the theft which followed - and concluded that Ramaphosa did have a prima facie case to answer to in 2022.
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That is precisely why it will be very important to see the official response of the ANC to Mbeki's suggestion, especially given how the party's national executive committee and the Cabinet rallied to defend Ramaphosa after that conclusion.
It was scandalous how the ANC brutally used its numbers to squash any debate in Parliament on the report, even though the report stated very clearly that it was provisional and did not necessarily conclude that he was guilty.
Fortunately, the ANC will no longer be able to ride roughshod over the opposition, as it often did before. That is one of the big gains of the ANC's defeat in the May general elections and the formation of the government of national unity (GNU).
Seepe is right - the implications of what Mbeki is saying should ideally apply retrospectively to Ramaphosa, Gwede Mantashe and many other leaders who have been implicated in various acts of corruption, mismanagement and wrongdoing, especially if such conduct is believed to undermine confidence in officials and the governance structures they operate in.
Probably, if the ANC did have such a finely tuned step-aside policy, as Mbeki is suggesting, it would have hugely benefitted the anti-corruption campaign, especially within the state and public sectors, where most of the corruption we have experienced has occurred over the past decade.
A concern for the GNU
This is a very important matter which I believe should concern the GNU. Remember that the defeat the ANC suffered for the first time on 29 May means the majority of MPs are no longer from the ANC, but from several other parties which won a share of the vote in the elections.
In other words, MPs and members of political parties in Parliament must be subjected to the same set of agreed upon anti-corruption policies. Expanding the application of a uniform policy would cover the conduct and actions of any member or leader of the ANC or any other party which warrants stepping aside, pending the outcome of appropriate investigations.
So pervasive and endemic has corruption become in this country over the past decade in particular that such a uniform and fine-tuned anti-corruption policy will be a vitally important measure to combat and unearth a societal scourge which has had devastating consequences across all departments of government and all sectors of the state and society more broadly.
- Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst, commentator and author.
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