Ace Magashule mimicking Jacob Zuma’s legal and political strategy has a distinct advantage. It makes the suspended ANC secretary-general predictable.
And it can help South Africans to put a stop to the ANC’s further destruction of their country — by rejecting the party if Magashule is anywhere near its top leadership structures come 2022.
The election genie is firmly out of the bottle for the party: the realisation that there is political life after the ANC and that social grants will not disappear even after it is removed from power has firmly set in among the electorate.
Life after the ANC is imaginable now — its support even in rural areas slipped dramatically in November’s elections, analysis of the results by the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research has shown.
Importantly, ANC elective battles are no longer the sole preserve of its fatally flawed membership base; where in the past, at least before 2017, its 5,000-odd conference delegates thought only of their stomachs when selecting party leaders, they now have to think twice.
A choice which riles the electorate can strip the party of power, fast.
It’s all in the realm of the possible now.
This is the reason then Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza ditched Jacob Zuma’s preferred candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in 2017 and threw his lot behind Cyril Ramaphosa — the writing was on the wall and anyone associated with Zuma would surely have accelerated the ANC’s electoral demise.
Now Magashule and his backers are quickly approaching his self-imposed five-year milestone to “reclaim” the ANC. Shortly after Ramaphosa was elected, Magashule, speaking at the ANC’s anniversary celebrations in KwaZulu-Natal, emphasised that it was only a matter of “five years, comrades” before his faction would “take back the ANC”.
That five-year period is almost up, with the ANC’s next elective conference set to take place in December 2022. But much has happened since Magashule made that promise.
He is now facing corruption charges and is suspended from the ANC, far removed from his powerful position as secretary-general. He is fighting for his political life and his freedom.
Magashule is facing charges related to a dodgy R255m asbestos contract during his tenure as Free State premier.
He has adopted Zuma’s strategy in dealing with the charges, using his court appearances to lie about the facts of the case and turn them into political theatre to attack his enemies and play the victim.
Even legally, he is Zuma’s mini-me. He lodged an application with the Bloemfontein high court seeking a ruling that there is in fact no case against him. This, of course, is before the trial even begins.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has hit back in an affidavit, tackling Magashule’s propaganda that the case is a result of political meddling by his enemies.
The NPA described this allegation as “entirely vague, respectfully romancing, and fanciful”. It says Magashule has not provided a shred of evidence to back up his allegations.
In an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika last month, Magashule said the Hawks had approached people to ask them to “lie about this person”, yet in his formal, substantive court application, he doesn’t raise this allegation at all.
But he is running out of political road too. Any hope he had of overturning his suspension from the party is dwindling fast; in September he was denied leave to appeal the high court ruling dismissing his legal challenge to his suspension.
If Magashule has not abandoned his hope of reclaiming the ANC, he is completely out of touch with reality. But even if he and his faction succeed, the electorate will see to it that their victory is pyrrhic.