Wenzeni uCyril?

The head of state is in for a heated weekend [View this email in your browser]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, All roads would, it appears, be headed to the National Recreation Centre — that’s Nasrec to the uninitiated — in Johannesburg and the ANC’s national policy conference at the weekend. Three days, hopefully, of amadla-ing, awethu-ing and comrade chairing lie ahead. There should also be, one predicts, a fair amount of discussions about ANC policies — and how to avoid losing the 2024 elections — and a lot of hurrying up and waiting on the part of the fourth estate while the matter of who is entitled to participate and who isn’t is resolved. The new ANC leadership elected in KwaZulu-Natal last weekend, along with their comrades in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, aren’t happy with the party’s step-aside rule — or uBaba going to jail — so a relatively combative weekend is to be expected. There may also be something of a struggle to convince some of the delegates that this is a policy and not a conference at which elections will take place — nor a national general council — and that the best they can walk away with is recommendations for the national conference in December. Not exactly a gambol in the meadow — or Andile Yenana and McCoy Mrubata at the Rainbow for that matter — but duty calls. Like many of my fellow South Africans — or at least those who will be freezing in the shadow of the Calabash — I’m wondering if Andre de Ruyter is going to keep the lights on so that the comrades won’t be conferring in the dark. The recent announcements that load-shedding would be “coming to an end soon” appear to have been timed so that Eskom could give the conference full power for the weekend, without it being too obvious that the rules were being bent for the good people in black green and gold — again. Amandla awethu — literally. Come to think of it, isn’t Dre what John Steenhuisen would call a deployed cadre — if Dre were black, of course — given that he is the chief executive of a state entity and answers to an ANC cabinet minister? One is therefore hopeful that De Ruyter won’t take the hump over energy minister and ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe’s less than kind words about him last week in suggesting he’s not the man for the job at Eskom. All we need is De Ruyter setting Gauteng on stage eight load-shedding on Friday morning on his way to OR Tambo and a weekend of quaffing Stellenbosch’s finest by the Groot Dam while the comrades read their conference documents by cellphone light. The last time the radical economic transformation (RET) faction in the ANC called De Ruyter a racist, we had stage four while he vacationed in Holland, merrily, for a couple of weeks, so one is hopeful, but not certain, that the delegates — and ourselves — won’t be left in the dark. Let’s hope Dre is a disciplined — as well as a deployed — cadre. The RET’s clown prince, Carl Niehaus, was certainly hopeful when he led a three-man picket outside Durban’s Olive Convention Centre last weekend to call on the delegates inside to stop ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa from speaking; at least in the beginning. Carl appears to have not received the memo that the RET is now in the ANC mainstream and thus no longer so radical — or the one about the realignment across the factions in the ANC. One assumes that’s the result of being deployed to the Unemployment Insurance Fund queue by Luthuli House. The comrades didn’t exactly line up to join Mpangazitha’s protest; most gave him a pretty wide berth, avoiding making eye contact in case he asked them for a loan, or lifted their wallet — and by the end of his stint in the street he cut a pretty pathetic — albeit comical — figure. The KwaZulu-Natal delegates did give Ramaphosa a somewhat cold welcome — and the expected rendition of Wenzeni uZuma — but Carl’s appeal for the comrades to drag the head of state off in handcuffs appeared to have fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps Carl is actually a double agent — a deep cover participant in a fiendishly clever plot by Ramaphosa to get himself arrested and finally secure some street credentials — and the acceptance of the comrades — along with a song with his name in it, at last. Wenzeni uCyril. Plot or no plot, it’s pretty much certain that the delegates will be wenzeni-ing again on Friday during the opening session — and before the closing address on Sunday — and that they will wenzeni until December, when they come back to Nasrec for the elective conference — even if it is to vote for a second term for Ramaphosa. Until next week, Paddy Harper [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? 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