Age gap in SA becomes a chasm, setting the stage for eternal internal political succession battles

While the South African population is best described as youthful, those who occupy the ANC’s leadership positions are growing old, and there is evidence that those harbouring leadership aspirations attempt to manipulate definitions of age to their own advantage.

This makes the ANC even more remote from those whose votes it claims to want. But this age gap is not confined to the ANC, and the current generation of older leaders within all the political parties has similar problems or may soon face pressure to accept younger voices. 

Last week, the ANC’s national spokesperson, Pule Mabe, was criticised for arguing, first in a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting and then in public, that the party’s definition of “youth” should go up to the age of 50. He said that while the United Nations defines “youth” as someone under 25, in both Zimbabwe and China, leaders who were much older than 50 held leadership positions in political “youth” formations.

At the same time, the Mpumalanga ANC said it was supporting ANC Treasurer Paul Mashatile for the position of deputy ANC leader in the name of a “generational mix”. President Cyril Ramaphosa is 69, while Mashatile is 60.

Within this is another important aspect of context: under the new rules for the leadership contests outlined by the ANC’s Electoral Committee (chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe), someone can only be nominated for a position on the NEC if they have been a member of the ANC for 10 years. The aim of this is to prevent newcomers from joining the ANC and then immediately jumping into the leadership contestation. 

It also surely prevents outsiders from trying to claim the party at any point in the future (and perhaps even precludes Julius Malema from rejoining the ANC in a leadership position in years to come).

But it also prevents younger people from contesting for top positions.

Those who claim that people over the age of 60 can be a part of a “generational mix” simply use this provision in an attempt to create space for themselves. To make such a claim is a naked power grab.

Within the ANC, the issue of a “generational mix” has been a thorny issue for many years.

More than a decade ago, Malema, as leader of the ANC Youth League, argued that Fikile Mbalula should be ANC secretary-general in the name of the very same “generational mix”. And one could go back to the 1940s when Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu started pushing the ANC towards becoming a mass movement while they were very young.

It is clear these days, however, that the ANC has failed to manage the regeneration of its ranks.

A brief look at the Cabinet reveals that many people have been there for a long time. Angie Motshekga is now in her 13th year as basic education minister, Naledi Pandor first became a Cabinet minister in 2004, along with Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who is now the National Assembly Speaker.

While people under the age of 40 in a Cabinet anywhere are perhaps still on the rare side, what marks our situation as different is that there are so many people who have been in top positions for so long.

And it is not just the Cabinet.

There are other political positions which suggest that people sit at the top table for many years.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi was the leader of the IFP for 46 years, Helen Zille, now the chair of the DA’s Federal Council, was elected as DA leader in 2007, and Zwelinzima Vavi, now the general secretary of Saftu, was elected as general secretary of Cosatu in 1999.

This suggests that there is a group of people in important leadership positions who do not make way for a new generation, sometimes just moving around without leaving the stage. And that this is not limited to one political party or one political ideology.

There are important reasons for this.

No life without politics