Has the ANC lost control? You cannot control the government or municipalities of the North West while the heads of the ANC are fighting each other, says Poifo Ramotlatsi, the ANCs spokesperson in North West. We are leaderless. To be honest, we dont have direction in this province. We dont know what is happening within the province and what it is that we can do so that we deal with the problem effectively.
Ramotlatsi is talking to Daily Maverick on the phone from Rustenburg, in between meetings. He sounds like a desolate man.
People said that they supported President Jacob Zuma during the Mangaung Conference, and they want ownership, because after the Zuma faction won, they thought that they would take over. But this is not the characteristic of the ANC. However, I am told that the National Working Committee (NWC) is working very hard to rebuild the ANC in the province. It means that they are going to start from scratch and go from branch to branch to rebuild the ANC, says Ramotlatsi.
There is a rumour that there is going to be a team from provincial government that will look into the affairs of the ANC, because the current leadership is divided and cant lead the ANC in the North West. This could compromise the ANC for elections next year, he adds.
The North West is increasingly a province characterised by violence and mayhem. At its epicentre is Rustenburg, a city whose name ironically means rest. But for that ANC heartland there has been nothing but turmoil of late.
Late in May, the North West government confirmed a rumour that had swirled around the province for some time that premier Thandi Modise had received death threats, and that there was a plot to take her life. The premiers office and the ANC handed the matter over to the police.
Political murder is not an anomaly in the North West. Last year Obuti Chika, the ruling party Secretary of the Kenneth Kaunda region, was gunned down outside his Klerksdorp home on the eve of the ANCs Mangaung Conference in December 2012. A couple of months later the provinces MEC for Local Government and Traditional Affairs, China Dodovu, was arrested in connection with the murder. Dodovus co-accused: Papiki Babuile, provincial chairperson of the ANC Youth League.
But insiders said they saw the murder coming a mile off. At the beginning of May 2012 a regional meeting held in Potchefstroom, during which a vote of no confidence was passed against Chika, turned bloody. Guns were drawn and pointed, and opposing factions at the meeting threw stones at each other. Order was resumed amidst the chaos, only after a heavy police presence turned up.
In 2009, ANC councillor and unionist Moss Phakoe was shot dead outside of his home. Former Rustenburg mayor, Matthew Wolmarans, and his bodyguard where convicted of the murder. Wolmarans was granted leave to appeal the murder in January 2013, after petitioning the Constitutional Court.
Ramotlatsi says that factionalism and greed is hurting his party. We are supposed to be leading this province and building the ANC, but instead of building the ANC we are fighting each other to have control of government resources. The violence in this province is caused by people who want to take over government. The premier has been threatened with assassination because certain people feel that she does not comply with their wishes. They want the MECs to be changed and all that. This is one of the sources of violence in this province, he says.
There is this particular faction that is led by the chairperson (of the ANC, Supra Mahumapelo). The chairperson thought that he was going to be premier (after the ANCs Mangaung Conference), but now that hasnt happened. The people who support him and his ideologies - they feel that in order for Supra to be premier they must eradicate the current cadre, the sitting premier. There is this tendency. But why should they remove Thandi Modise, who is also a member of the ANC? asks Ramotlatsi, who laments that cadres are being shot dead by what he calls factions with narrow interest.
While Mahumapelo heads one faction, pre-Manguang ANC provincial secretary Kabelo Mataboge led the other. Mataboge has been suspended and every month he needs to spend time with this person who is supposed to be a senior member of the ANC. His mentor, I am told, is Pallo Jordan. Mataboges suspension as secretary is conditional that he doesnt stand for any position at any time, for three years, but his ANC membership is still active.
A province underpinned by agriculture and resources, the mining industry has been no less deadly. On May 11 2013, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) lost its regional leader, Mawethu Steven.
Steven was pivotal to AMCUs growth, but had been the chairman of NUMs Karee branch at Marikana before he was fired from that union, and soon after from Lonmin. Popular amongst miners because, it is said, he was very active and involved with workers issues, the anger that surrounded Stevens firing fuelled growth for AMCU.
At the time of his death in mid-May, there were rumours that Steven was contesting the leadership of NUM, but AMCU president, Joseph Mathunjwa, denied this after Stevens death. The AMCU man was shot four times in the back in a tavern near Marikana, whilst wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the unions insignia.
The same Saturday gunmen fired at twin brothers, Andile and Ayanda Menzi, at their Wonderkop shack at Marikana. One of the brothers died in that shack, whilst the other died later in hospital. A week earlier, Lungani Mabutyana of the Eastern Cape allegedly committed suicide. Mabutyana was due to testify at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, as was Stevens.
David van Wyk, a researcher at the Bench Marks Foundation, says the violence looks like a third force type activity to try to recover Rustenburg for the ANC and NUM.
You have Blade Nzimande talking about fighting to take back Rustenburg, and then on May Day, you have Cyril Ramaphosa saying that Rustenburg is the ANC heartland and the home of NUM. That the ANC will fight to recover this situation, and soon afterwards people start dying like flies, he says.
If you speak to people on the ground, most of them are shifting to (Bantu) Holomisas UDM (United Democratic Movement). Some have shifted to the DA, but it seems that all things being equal, and if there is no intimidation, Holomisa might win or make good gains in that area. Holomisa is from the Eastern Cape, and most of the workers are from the Eastern Cape, Van Wyk says.
Rustenburg is important to the ANC because 75% of the voters are situated in and around Rustenburg. If the ANC loses Rustenburg, they lose the province. And there could be a knock-on effect in the Eastern Cape because many of these mineworkers have families or familial links with the Eastern Cape, he adds.
DA provincial leader, Chris Hattingh, says the mining violence is complex, and is doing the mining industry a lot of harm. The mining industry in the North West is under serious threat, and next to agriculture is the major job provider. We have a declining gold industry, the diamond industry has taken a serious knock, and now we have the same threat in the platinum industry. The impact of the violence at the mines is putting the platinum mines under threat and contributing to job losses in the province, says Hattingh, who maintains that the violence is politically motivated.
The miners are being mobilised in various ways, and one of the ways includes the use of violence, and this will continue until the elections. Hattingh says that the violence and faction fighting is causing chaos and instability in the province. The ANC has lost total control over the North West, he says.
On the ground, Daily Maverick hears more talk of mayhem and murder. Trust amongst miners is at an all-time low. Workers suspect their peers of being spies and there is the thinking that those who cannot be trusted should be killed. AMCU sources say miners are disgruntled at the service they get from NUM. Others tell Daily Maverick that Lonmin miners are unhappy with AMCU because the promises that were made to broker the end of the strike that saw 34 miners shot dead by police at Marikana, have been broken. AMCU is currently said to enjoy its biggest support at Anglo Platinum.
A 26-year-old rock driller Daily Maverick spoke to at Marikana said unity was dead, and that it was now the job of every man to try and protect themselves. NUM killed us first because they were trying to scare people away from joining AMCU. The fight has begun now and I dont see it stopping. Last week two NUM people were shot, and I guarantee you that before the end of July well see an AMCU body. No one is safe and I might wake up dead tomorrow - only God knows, said the driller, who asked that his name not be used because he was afraid of being attacked for speaking out.
NUM is government, he said, adding that the government could call in the military but that that would be no guarantee that the deaths would stop. We are joining UDM and encouraging other comrades to join as well. Holomisa stood by us since the massacre, unlike Zuma, who never even came to us. ANC will not see any vote from us workers, he said.
A 31-year-old NUM man said that the violence was encouraged by union bosses. He said that a mafia had been set up to generate conflict between workers. NUM has done this in the past and we will do it again. We will rebuild and claim our rightful space. We will campaign in Marikana; no one will stop us because we live in a democracy, he said.
But as the body count increases, democracy itself seems to be dying. If you respond to a democratic challenge democratically there is no problem, but if you respond to a democratic challenge by means of incredible violence then you are asking for trouble. There are going to be real problems in that area now, Van Wyk says.
As the general election draws closer, democracy had better don her suit of armour, because the greed, the fight for resources, the factionalism and the union turf wars will heighten. The body count will increase, jobs will be lost, and the economy will suffer. It will take more than mentoring, or investigations, or an ANC roadshow to heal the fissures in the North West the fault lines are too deep. DM
Read more:
- Fear grips Marikana after murders on IOL
- AMCU official's death speaks to deeper issues in Marikana at Mail & Guardian
- Jobs for pals is sinking NW municipalities on IOL
- AMCU official's death speaks to deeper issues in Marikana on Mail & Guardian
Photo: Thandi Modise after being voted deputy secretary-general with 2304 against Thoko Didiza's 1455 during the ANC's national conference in Polokwane, Tuesday, 18 December 2007. Picture: Werner Beukes/SAPA
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