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The ANC is spinning the line that scandal-tainted Mkhize is a 'unity' candidate

Imraan Buccus
By Imraan Buccus
17 Oct 2022
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If the ‘unity candidate’ to lead the ANC is someone who has been tainted by corruption, who never spoke out during the dark years of State Capture and has never spoken out against the assassinations of grassroots activists, then the party has run out of road.

ANC officials aspiring to top positions all declare that they are “willing to serve” if this is “the decision of the branches”. No one admits to their ambition, no matter their rank.

Nobody believes this farce but it continues, year after year. Recently, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Lindiwe Sisulu and even Jacob Zuma himself declared their “willingness to serve”. But it is former health minister Zweli Mkhize whose “willingness to serve” has done the most to unite the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.

The ANC is spinning the line that Mkhize is a “unity” candidate who can unite the neoliberal and kleptocratic factions of the ANC.

This may or may not be true within the ANC, a party where someone like Nomvula Mokonyane is seen as a credible candidate for leadership. But what the ANC seems to be failing to understand is that the party no longer has a blank cheque from the electorate. If what works within the party does not work for society, the ANC runs a real risk of losing power.

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Already opinion polls and the mood on the ground indicate a clear possibility that the ANC will fail to win an outright victory in the next national election. Grassroots activists no longer affectionately refer to the ANC as Khongolose (Congress). These days, activists seem uniformly and contemptuously to refer to the ANC as amasela (thieves). And the middle classes are now as enraged as the poor at the collapse of the electricity system, and the water system too in some parts of the country.

Everyone outside the ANC who I speak to in Durban, rich and poor, politically active or not, and across races, is disgusted that the party sees Mkhize as a “unity candidate”.

It is true, of course, that Mkhize has not been found guilty in a court of law and that trial by media can be a kangaroo court, as the media’s own scandals, such as the Sars “brothel” scandal, have shown. However, in this case there is a clear prima facie case in the public domain of Mkhize’s complicity in the Digital Vibes corruption scandal.



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Every act of corruption is unacceptable, but there was something particularly odious about the Digital Vibes case, since the tender in question was the first allocated to the proposed national health scheme.

It is a clear fact that Mkhize’s family benefited from a tender allocated to starting a national health scheme, and thereby smashed confidence in the state’s capacity to manage such a scheme.

United in disgust


The ANC and the state have failed in many ways. There are many, many issues that need to be addressed, including replacing party hacks with qualified professionals in key management positions, a complete lack of credible economic policy and much, much more. But the one issue that unites South Africans across race, class and levels of education is utter disgust at corruption.

In his classic work on the postcolonial crisis, The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon wrote that the people need to move beyond uncritical support for former national liberation movements and be taught to cry “Stop thief!” In South Africa in 2022, nobody needs to teach the people to shout that out – we are, across our divisions, already in full cry.

People may not understand the finer points of monetary policy, or the engineering challenges faced by Eskom, but everyone knows a thief when they see one.

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It is this anger that will, in time, seal the fate of the ANC. The only questions are when the ANC has to move into an unstable coalition and when it loses an election outright.

If the “unity candidate” to lead the ANC is someone who has been tainted by corruption, who never spoke out during the dark years of State Capture and has never spoken out against the assassinations of grassroots activists, then the ANC has run out of road.

It may not realise it now, but it will certainly understand the new reality when the next election rolls around in 2024. The chances of the party getting above 50% were slim but they are now rapidly receding. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.

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