Can Bathabile Dlamini save the ANC Women’s League?

Bathabile Dlamini is in for a rough ride as president of the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League.

University of the Witwatersrand politics professor Shireen Hassim’s history of the league reminded us that it has struggled to define its role and identity for much of its existence. Never has this been truer than today. “There are times that as an organisation you are at your lowest,” Dlamini told the Mail & Guardian in April.

An electoral congress which should have taken place two years ago has only just happened. There are reports of chaotic internal disorganisation, as well as financial difficulties. The highest profile the league has achieved in recent years was as a result of its representatives’ dogged attendance of the Oscar Pistorius trial. The ANC Women’s League’s purpose in the media’s eyes appears to have been reduced to the question of when the body will back a female candidate for ANC president.

Not all the blame can be placed at outgoing leader Angie Motshekga’s door. The most shameful moment in the league’s history came on the watch of previous president Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, when ANC Women’s League members demonstrated in support of Jacob Zuma outside his rape trial in 2006, carrying signs which included wording such as “Zuma, rape me”.

Under Motshekga, however, the league has continued fighting the good fight – for Zuma, rather than for women. While remaining silent on countless matters related to gender inequality, the league published no less than four statements condemning the “undignified portrayal of the President”, as per Brett Murray’s ‘The Spear’ painting. The league also came out fighting for Zuma after he gave the 2012 interview to People of the South in which he opined that “kids are important to a woman because they actually give an extra training to a woman, to be a mother”.

It hasn’t all been bad. Motshekga says her term as president has seen the league expand to the tune of 41,7%, though the membership system seems to have its problems too. The outgoing leader also delivered one of the strongest statements to come out of the league in recent memory at the congress this week, even though it would not prove enough to save her.

Motshekga lost the leadership position to Bathabile Dlamini by almost 500 votes. Notwithstanding allegations of skullduggery levelled at both factions, the landslide victory is a strong message to Dlamini that the membership is ready for change. But is Dlamini the right person to lead that change?

There are encouraging signs. During her short tenure as social development minister so far, Dlamini has spoken and acted with relative boldness. She has given progressive and unequivocal addresses on issues such as abortion and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, as well as ushering in an acclaimed strategy plan for dealing with adolescent sexual rights.

“I have not heard (leadership candidates) Motshekga or Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa say anything meaningful on the injustices black women endure in procuring an abortion, nor sitting alongside a black lesbian trying to access education in a homophobic school,” health activist Marion Stevens wrote before the vote’s outcome. “I do hope that sanity will prevail and that the ANCWL will elect a smart leader like Dlamini.”

Now that they have, others will point to less savoury aspects of Dlamini’s political past. In 2006, she pleaded guilty to theft and fraud charges following the abuse of parliamentary travel vouchers in the ‘Travelgate’ scandal. Dlamini admitted to fraud totaling R254,000, and was sentenced to a fine of R120,000 and five years’ imprisonment suspended conditionally for five years.

“According to the charge sheet,” the Mail & Guardian wrote at the time, Dlamini “knew that in terms of parliamentary rules the vouchers could only be used for air travel. However, her vouchers were used to cover the costs of hotel accommodation, car rentals and other benefits as well.”

More recently, Dlamini made headlines after attacking Crime Line head Yusuf Abramjee on Twitter following the signal jamming incident at this year’s state of the nation address. Dlamini accused Abramjee of having orchestrated the media’s protest in the National Assembly when journalists discovered that they had no internet access.

“You are pushing us too much and you are hardening us day by day, we are at the edge right now, if you want to know us carry on,” Dlamini tweeted. Her words were interpreted by many as a threat to media freedom.

Dlamini’s supporters will be hoping issues like these will soon be forgotten as the minister takes up her new role – one of the most powerful women in the ANC. The votes at the disposal of the ANC Women’s League, when the time comes to elect Zuma’s successor, will ensure that Dlamini has power – albeit limited – as a king or queenmaker within the party.

Fresh out of the blocks, Dlamini has already indicated that the league will support a female candidate for president, without specifying yet who that will be. The frontrunners are said to be current Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete and African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Of the two, Dlamini-Zuma is likely to benefit from the country’s short political memory, having been out of active South African politics for the last three years. Whether she would make a good president is a question for another day. (The University of Cape Town’s Anthony Butler thinks not).

But Dlamini will have more on her plate than anointing a female presidential candidate, and she has already made it clear that this matter will not be her sole focus. She has delivered a stern warning to maintenance defaulters that they should pay up or expect to be brought to book, and similarly that men who abuse women should watch their backs.

“We want to be the vanguard of the women’s struggle,” she has said.

A necessary first step will be to bring together the factions within the league which were divided by the leadership contest. Then there’s the organisational mess – finances and membership – of the women’s league and its branches to tackle.

None of it will be easy, but a much-needed change in leadership for the league at least brings the prospect of a new energy and focus to its programmes. After its disastrous last few years, the ANC Women’s League has everything to play for. DM

Photo: The new ANC Women's League president Bathabile Dlamini (GCIS)

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