Mandela the face of the ANC’s campaign

There is little doubt that when South Africans look at the ANC 2014 election posters they will imagine the benevolent face of Nelson Mandela and, perhaps in tribute to the era and the 1994 dream, mark their ballots.

Every second of focus on Mandela’s fragile and failing health is top-notch Election 2014 campaigning for the ANC. But it is doing too much. In this season it needs only reach out to South Africans and with humility assure them that it is dedicated to seeing through the dreams of which Mandela (rightly or wrongly) became the saintly patron. It will reap the political credit, but not if it overplays its hand.

Mandela is the ANC. Neither facile opposition attempts to also claim his face and share his legacy nor clumsy ANC manoeuvres to rehearse its election manifesto when it has world media attention can detract from this reality.

There is no doubt about the ANC-Mandela link, timelessly. The one’s history is the other’s lifeblood. In critical phases of the movement’s evolution, it was often Mandela’s decisions and actions – along with those of comrades like Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and many others – that bestowed on the ANC those ingredients that to this day speak about irreproachable integrity and outstanding strategy.

It would be enough for the ANC, in these days, to let Mandela’s legacies be. Just the recognition of Mandela and evidence of humble and sincere tributes to Mandela will rejuvenate the movement. His indelible association with the ANC will stand, even if at this point of two decades of democracy it is a new ANC with largely different cadres and anomalous leadership that articulates a post-liberation ethos.

The ANC should be able to invigorate the organisation long enough to let electoral prospects bloom. Part of this spill-over effect will become engrained; other parts will be shed in the aftermath of the passing of the giant.

This is the actual (and hush-hush… We cannot speak elections now, but much behind-the-scenes talk is happening) Mandela bequest to the ANC’s election campaign 2014. The focus on Mandela and the infusion of the ANC with much-needed Mandela ethos (mostly real, sometimes somewhat mythical) could probably not have come at a better time.

Some argue that the ANC would have benefited more from all the national and international attention closer to the time of an election.

Alas, there is no better time than now for the ANC to get out of the quagmires of image and ethics afflicting it in the early campaign phases. Albeit sometimes embarrassing in the contrasts of past and present leadership, every South African, young and old, will seek out the messages of the iconic leader who made the struggle his life, would not compromise on his and his organisation’s integrity, and turned reconciliation and nation-building into largely realised national pursuits.

These may well override the damning current images of Guptagate, Nkandlagate, Oilgate, Armsgate, ethics in movement and government more talked about than enacted, dazzling policies not coming anywhere near implementation, and political representation not worth the ballot paper the cross was made on. These contrasts will be in sharp focus in the weeks and months ahead. The damage they have inflicted will also be highlighted.

If wisely handled, the weeks ahead could be a period of recasting for the ANC. “In the name of Mandela” could become a pseudo-religious mantra for rededication to a new page and era.

There are three starting blocks for strategic ANC action in this time of change.

First, wipe out memories of the opportunistic visit to Madiba in Houghton in April. Never use those images again – even express regret for not having been sensitive enough to the all-too-evident fragility of the icon.

Two, do not blatantly hijack – as was done in the past week –national and international media that want to focus on Mandela.

This smacked of an insecure and, again, opportunistic (“desperate” would hopefully be an over-statement) ANC. Mandela was famous for rising to the occasion. Emulate him.

Three, do not stoop to the level of the DA in its attempted snatching of a part of Mandela. Mandela belongs to the ANC.

Let the DA and its brochure have a little moment in the sun; no one will be fooled as to Mandela's political home.

Thus, without trying too hard by hogging Mandela and his legacy, and rather humbly bearing out Mandela's message of serving the citizens and consistently working to deserve their trust, the ANC’s Election 2014 campaign could receive a favourable boost.

Let the lessons of 1994 be remembered. The ANC, in preparation for the campaign, always as a collective, sat through briefings on election research findings and gradually came to accept that Mandela was the face of the ANC. The organisation itself was high in popular esteem; Mandela even higher.

With his smiling face on 1994 election posters the ANC had excellent prospects. At stake was the electoral consolidation of the definitive defeat of both the National Party and the one-time liberation movement, the Pan Africanist Congress.

Mandela was the undisputed, albeit not flawless, leader who united the ANC’s exiles, the contingent of released prisoners and the internal resistance forces. His name meshed with the transition and victory over apartheid, even if it still took years to consolidate.

His innate intellectual insights and oratorical skills turned his speeches into great historical moments – profound political effect flowed from his speeches. It was not just words. It was history unfolding. From the compelling symbolism of his walk from the then Victor Verster Prison and his Cape Town City Hall freedom speech, to his theatrical put-down of FW de Klerk at Codesa I, and the blood-stalling turning away from a precipice of violence and vengeance at Chris Hani’s funeral; to his inaugural speech at the Union Buildings in May 1994… and his hopeful farewell State of the Nation address in 1999, Mandela embodied a South African saviour.

This message of hope, anchored in service and humility, and matched with action rather than talk about action, is what South Africans want in 2013-14.

Perhaps the icon and the early 1990s’ ANC settled too easily, were too eager to moderate and be conciliatory, and too optimistically believed that they could make further-reaching differences through the barrel of the constitution… and that the rest would follow through democratic governance.

Yet, those first five years made a massive start.

Many of the achievements of “twenty years of democracy” that are now the toast of the nation were notched up in those founding years – while the ANC was still capturing state power, the old NP started imploding, while Cyril Ramaphosa and crown prince Thabo Mbeki duelled for ANC succession.

It is the ANC of Nelson Mandela that South Africans in Election 2014 want to see.

Perhaps, in a moment of frankness, the current leadership will step back and recast themselves as the believable servants of the people, as off-pedestal democrats and as aspiring Mandelas.

* Susan Booysen is a professor in the Graduate School of Public & Development Management, Wits University, and author of The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power.

* The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers

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