GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The total collapse of ANC party discipline
Former President Thabo Mbeki has been on something of a revisionist mission of late. His latest contribution to the image of a new and improved Mbeki was his suggestion that MPs be allowed to vote with their conscience in the approaching motion of no confidence on President Jacob Zuma. This from the architect of cadre deployment and its iron discipline. Another few years of this sort of thing and he’ll have us believing he was prepared to go to war with Robert Mugabe for the sake of Zimbabwean democracy. The very fact that Mbeki is able to make the suggestion at all is a sign of how profoundly things have imploded inside the ANC. In 2002, he wanted Jeremy Cronin’s head on a stick for suggesting there was a growing tendency towards "Zanufication" in the party — another moment he has since sought to redefine as nothing more than a misunderstanding. Of Cronin and various other unhappy voices at the time, he said, "Disrespect for this practice by any organisation, of support for democra...
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