CASAC* IS TAKING THE BATON OF SOUND AND FURY FROM COPE?

* Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution

So, the businessman who was the first to bravely broach the subject of a political settlement for Jacob Zuma in the public arena in 2008 – when it was not fashionable to do so – is back on the front pages of our newspapers as a leader of civil society in defence of our constitution. You have to hand it to activist and business leader Sipho Pityana for reinventing himself far from the shadow of his brother Barney Pityana who shot to prominence at the back of the November convention two years ago.

The brothers would have been on the opposite ends of the pole when the national debate was reduced to how the ruling party intended to deal with the corruption charges facing the future head of state: a crucial constitutional matter.

Sipho Pityana fired the first salvo in September of 2008 literally calling on Zuma to be let off the hook in a muddled argument about the country’s stability. He wrote in the Mail and Guardian thus: “Would the prosecution of a sitting president not result in the kind of polarisation among criminal justice institutions that would make our country the playground of rogues and criminal elements?” This was clearly an argument crafted to undermine a straightforward process where all are equal before the law –otherwise known as the rule of law. Then came the lame caveat: “The dangers that come with seeking to change laws and institute special dispensations to deal with special circumstances are real.” It did not end there as he proceeded to the punchline….. “But to bury our heads in the sand and rigidly chase an oncoming train can be equally disastrous.”

So one is left only with the impression of constitutional obfuscation or is it a genuine desire to find a middle ground between clearly polarised positions on a hugely divisive issue?

His brother, respected Barney Pityana, was however a lot less nuanced at the November convention on November 1 2008, calling for leaders to take full responsibility. According to the Times Live, Barney Pityana said “there was a desperate need for a quality of leadership that has a moral consciousness embedded into them … and a leadership committed not just to themselves but first even above themselves to the well-being of the other.” He said that leadership has to be held accountable and must embrace and reflect the values of the people it seeks to represent- a clear reference to a position of no special favours to Zuma.

These two approaches to this issue makes it clear that the issues of the defence of the constitution will never be cut and dried. It is clear to me that this is why someone like Sipho Pityana who obviously is clear about the respect for the constitution even back then – was willing to explore options other than what he terms going against an oncoming train in the name of rigidity.

Today many can say to him trying to make sense of some of the tendency to bend the constitution by the ruling party is as good as going against a moving train. But he has now plucked up the courage to do so by leading what many see as the filling of the vacuum left by the demise of especially black opposition parties able to tackle the ANC.

Many commentators have argued that the only real opposition to the monolith that the ANC is will come from within. The dominance of ANC luminaries in Casac who themselves are not strangers to controversy is interesting as it may be dangerous to the course. The likes of Frene Ginwala who recently accused the ANC of deliberately undermining SCOPA and therefore parliament; the likes of Pikoli who are no strangers to speaking truth to power even if that got him fired; the likes of Kadar Asmal who has been shown the nearest grave by the MK Veterans and insulted by the firebrand Mbalula for daring to suggest that the ANC has lost its moral compass.

The role of these luminaries and more suggests that the only hope we have is the fixing of the ANC from within. I am not discounting the usual independent suspects such as Ramphele Mamphele, but one has to wonder why the luminaries thought it necessary to support and initiative that clearly points an accusatory finger at the ruling party. How do these loyal party members level such a serious accusation of endangering the constitution home – so much that you need such heavy weights in civil society to stand together and make their voices heard.

It is crucial however that if this initiative is to be taken seriously it must deal with the following ten matters currently threatening the constitution:

• The Media Tribunal: The council must oppose this terrible suggestion with all it can muster
• The Information Bill: This bill threatens to turn us into a secret society it must be rejected
• The truant judges: The judiciary will be the next target if it does not self correct.
• Disrespect of parliament: The recent political misconduct by the Minister of Defence is a symptom of things to come where the executive will run rough shod over parliament
• The undermining of chapter nine institutions: Kader Asmal must ask the question whatever happened to his report to streamline and strengthen these structures.
• The erosion of the NPA’s independence. The council must join in the reversal of Menzi Simelane’s appointment currently in front of the courts and being opposed by all sensible people.
• The systemic corruption: 2000 Civil servants have been recently fingered by SCOPA as having stolen 650 million Rands by doing business with themselves. Not a single one is in prison. There is something wrong there.
• Conflation of party and state. The council must support the mooted legislation that would deal with cadre deployment. Keeping the state and party separate is a good starting point to defend the constitution
• The council must support the prosecution of workers who strike in essential services but equally they must mount a campaign for the proper remuneration of civil servants to ensure that they should never resort to strikes that are fatal. The pursuit of second generation rights can defeat poverty.
• And finally should the issue of the prosecution of a sitting head of state arise. The council must not seek to skirt the issue like Sipho Pityana did in 2008 – they must reaffirm that no one is above the law and let the law take its course.

If Casac does not have the balls to confront the ruling elite in this way, it will go the way of the November convention and it will also earn itself a stanza from the powers that be as a ‘story told by an idiot full of sound and fury – signifying nothing’. Where the idiot is the luminaries whose gravitas has been wasted; where the sound and fury signifying nothing, is the stated intention to defend the constitution followed by no serious action while Rome continues to burn to the ground.

A New Beginning: The Only Hope for COPE

A discussion paper about the COPE Elective Congress on policy and leadership

COPE cannot go to its conference and emerge with more of the same leadership and current draft policies if it hopes to be taken seriously. As branches and regions begin to nominate leadership, it is heartening to see that sense is beginning to prevail to prepare the party for a fresh start.

The heated beginning of the political calendar early this year, with the bold move by the COPE youth to call things pretty much by their names when it came to the lethargy of our founding year ignited a much needed debate in COPE about what needs to be done to salvage this important project of building an alternative government . That aside, it is clear every day that passes, COPE needs to treat the upcoming conference as a golden opportunity to reinvent itself both in policy and in the projection of the kind of leadership that will re inspire the South African people.

If COPE emerges with anything that resembles the current CNC it can kiss its political fortunes goodbye. There is a need for conference to make a radical overhaul of that leadership in order to ready COPE to govern this country in the not so distant future starting with the crucial local government elections in 2011.

On the policy front there has been some interesting side discussions in COPE about the ideology that we want to be known by and the new political culture we need to establish especially discussions about establishing ourselves as a modern party. Both of these imperatives are yet to be clearly defined. These stand out and shout for attention because indeed we are battling so far to say whether we are fish or foul in the ideological stakes. One day we wake up with a term progressivism another we have strategists coming up with what can only be found in the das kapital about how economic redistribution must happen.

Even on national questions such as affirmative action we bite our lower lip instead of being unequivocal. This ideological hiatus cripples our ability to enter public discourse meaningfully and the bus of whatever is remaining of public discourse in South African is not waiting for us to get our act together. In my view one thing is clear: that we need to confirm that we are a social democratic party and stop any further confusion with encrypted ideological messaging. The rest frankly the voters couldn’t be bothered. God knows what percent of ANC supporters or even members checked on the encyclopedia what a broad church means before they went out in their millions to vote for the ANC.

I am certain even if you asked their latest recruit honourable Odendaal she will be hard pressed to explain after her wake from self confessed naivety nap, what the ANC really ideologically stands for. Ideology whose dictionary meaning is ‘a set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system’ – is really something that parties must do to clarify for themselves how they will package their appeal to voters – but frankly the electorate can’t be bothered by what amounts to slogans. All people need is inspiration and hope.

COPE has to translate the slogans of change and hope into something else that will give our people a sense of a new beginning. So this ideological clarity will tell people what COPE will do about the collapsing education and health systems, what it will do about the industrial policy that is battling to be born – what it will do about jobs and the declining economy. These things are what will make people stand up and take note – not big ideological words and grand schemes of veiled nationalization of mines banks or other SOE’s.

If COPE dabbles into being happy to articulate things that only its members understands and fail to link these to bread and butter issues that the masses of voters can relate with – it may as well exit the political stage on the basis of failure to be relevant. So far the policy drafts have not produced anything fantastically new and time is not on our side as the conference is ticking close.

This matter of inspiration brings me back to the second and crucial question of leadership. COPE has to elect a new leadership core if it is serious about recapturing the hearts and minds of South Africans. Such a leadership has to embrace the fact that COPE cannot and must not seek to emulate the ANC in any shape or form. That leadership must prepare to govern this land differently.

It is encouraging to learn of the fury with which a draft constitution was thrown out by the COPE leadership recently and suspended because ‘it looked like a replica of the ANC constitution’. But it is not enough to reject a piece of paper and then carry into the new organization the habits of the ANC and then act all surprised when the slip shows. We have to be serious about creating a new beginning. Something that people can recognize and see as new.

A culture of a political party that is modern and on the cutting edge must begin with the leadership that we will elect in May. If we don’t elect a leadership that can be in it for the long haul, young and dynamic, visionary and organized, we must not expect the result of such an election to be a modern party. The leadership that COPE must elect must be able to give a sense of confidence through their diverse leadership experience across the society that they are indeed ready to build a new South Africa and ready to embrace all South Africans regardless of their race and creed. They must be competent, full of integrity and must be servant leaders not kings.

While one is not advocating a mass purge – we have to be the change that we profess and give birth to a new beginning. Anything less than a new beginning will spell a disaster for us at the polls.

In a democratic organization we should now start to say who our preferred leaders to tackle these challenges are without being labeled factional. Elections by their very nature are bout choosing one leader over another for the sake of our organization let us embrace their competitive nature and stop the sickening conspiracy theories about having preferences.

I know who I will back to represent a renewal of COPE and that new beginning. Let the debate intensify now so that we do not cry over spilled milk after the May conference when we end up with a leadership that will be seen as new wine into old wine skins. The bible suggests that that would be somewhat undrinkable. It goes on to say in the book of Luke: ”And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.” Given the daily incompetence of the ruling party, South Africa is hungry for a fresh and new COPE.

A new beginning has to be found through a dynamic ideology and policy framework as well as a young and vibrant leadership that represents the kind of future we want for our country instead of the nostalgia of the places we have left behind.

Tabane is Political Advisor to COPE Parliamentary Leader. He writes in his personal capacity. This is a paper he released for internal debate in COPE about the upcoming elective conference.

COPE should be the change it wants to see

Eough has been said about how the first year of Cope’s existence was a rough ride characterised by a mix of leadership difficulties and a sense of disorganisation at both administrative, strategic and policy levels. So how should Cope fix these impediments that have made its founding year an overall disappointment for many of us? How should it become the change it wants to see in our society?

Electing a new and democratic leadership is one of the key solutions, as is policy clarity.

Frankly, there is no point in dreaming about a political programme that will have no driver, no leader, no initiator. A flock without a shepherd, or multiple shepherds for that matter, is a malady Cope cannot suffer further.

So uppermost in the agenda of the leadership must be to stop dithering and announce a date for the launch of its policy as well as an elective conference to deal, once and for all, with both these cardinal challenges.

While it is important for branches to be established ahead of such a conference, there is a case to be made for electing a leadership based on whatever branches are formed come the cut-off date for such an exercise – otherwise we may wait in perpetuity for the “ideal number of branches” and wake up to a disintegrated organisation with the few paid-up members Cope has having lost interest in the party altogether and an electorate that is disillusioned enough to resign themselves to the ruling party’s destruction of our democracy.

But the conference is not the be-all of Cope for 2010. I have four suggestions that are simple enough to start its rise from the ashes: being organised; being truthful about the challenges facing us in Parliament and in the party; being clear about the policy and leadership of the organisation; and, for heaven’s sake, having a campaign that can make Cope stand out and be the “change it wants to see in our society”.

These, for me, are the four challenges facing the party in the new year.

The challenge to be organised. First of all, in order to be organised the following basic things need to happen:

* The establishment of a seamless head office and staff with a set of professionals who will ensure clarity in developing and executing an overarching strategy for the re-emergence of Cope as a force to be reckoned with in our body politic.
* The appointment of a formal fundraiser: no party can live on politics or prayer alone. The dire financial situation needs to be changed urgently.
* The running of proper meetings with clear outcomes, and ensuring office bearers are made accountable systematically for the work they have been assigned to do.
* Ensuring that Cope has a business plan in all areas of its operations: you can’t run anything without a plan that outlines what resources we need to succeed and how the work will be monitored. The current programme of action is a good start, but is grossly inadequate.
* Ensuring that there is organised space for thousands of volunteers who want to help. There are just too many people who have walked away from the party because they were made to feel underutilised and unwanted.

Secondly, we come to being truthful about the challenges that face Cope in Parliament and in the party.

There is nothing that annoys the public more than pretending there is no crisis when it is staring you in the face. Therefore, the sooner we face the fact that we could be better organised in Parliament, the better. We need to acknowledge the challenges facing our leadership, caucus and whippery in Parliament and deal with these head-on.

There is a need for a broader engagement on what the strategy as an effective opposition in and out of Parliament has to be. The starting point is that the national committee should actually discuss the matter and give our members of Parliament direction. That this has not happened with any measure of seriousness, leaving much to be desired and a need to be fixed urgently.

Then we need a total overhaul of Cope’s modus operandi in Parliament if we are to operate shoulder to shoulder with other opposition parties whose machinery is polished and have had ample time for practice.

The much-publicised “toenadering” with the DA in particular must be clarified and communicated better. Cope members must be deeply involved in the shaping of any coalition into the next election.

I believe that well executed, such a coalition of opposition forces is a winner, but poorly handled it can backfire. Cope has to stand its ground because the future of such a coalition rests on its success as a player of significance and not an inefficient junior partner.

Be clear about the need for policy clarity and leadership stability.

In his book The Democratic Movement, Xolela Mangcu correctly argues that “It may well be that the arrival of the new party contributes to procedural plurality but does not automatically translate into a substantively democratic culture. In fact, political plurality can easily be either wonderfully democratic or terribly anarchic. To avoid the latter, plurality requires at least two things – vision and leadership.”

The firming up of Cope policies is the greatest challenge the party faces in 2010. The policy conference is crucial to accentuate and detail Cope’s vision for our country – the population needs to know what sort of South Africa it will have if it lets Cope govern.

Leadership has to be a visionary one prepared to establish a new culture, not to impose old cultures inherited from elsewhere. Any old culture of political traditions will kill this party as a new venture and contribute only to hollow plurality.

Be the change you want to see in the government.

One of the key issues Cope raised for the elections campaign was the professionalisation of the civil service.

We argued at the top of our voices that what is fundamentally wrong is the inability of the government to implement policies. In being the change it wants to see in our society, Cope needs to demonstrate the same professionalisation of its own organisation, be it how constituency offices are run, how we deal with the public, debtors and creditors as well as how we run our operations – how we deal with the wellbeing of our own staff, for that matter. The question should be: if this was the government would we run it this way?

Have at least one campaign that has nothing to do with ourselves, but with the people.

There are various campaigns Cope can run, starting with calling for corrupt officials to be jailed and communities without basic services to be taken care of and be represented.

Cope has to find that one campaign South Africans can identify with – a campaign that will turn its theory, ideology and policy into something people can appreciate.

At the same time I agree with Mangcu’s assertion in his book that given the lopsided majority of the ANC in our electoral politics, there must be strong emphasis on strengthening civil society, the judiciary and the media.

Cope must go back to where a seed of hope was planted – the defence of the constitution, but show through clear campaigns how these often lofty ideals of constitutionality can put bread on the table of our poverty-stricken population in the short and the long term.

In conclusion, 2010 can be a year that sees the reassertion of Cope as a front runner for the governance of this country. If we fix these things and become the change we want to see in our society, our new agenda for change and hope will start to shine bright on people’s faces.

* Tabane is political adviser to Cope parliamentary leader Mvume Dandala. He writes in his personal capacity. This is an edited version of a document released internally this week.
* This article was originally published on page 15 of The Sunday Independent on January 03, 2010