(This article of mine was published in October 2009 in The Monday briefing and in the Leadership Intelligence Bulletin)
If ANC youth leader Julius Malema says the nationalisation of South Africa’s mines will happen, the ironic truth is that it probably will, even despite repeated denials and assurances to the contrary offered by a variety of senior ANC and government leaders when Malema first broached the subject some months ago.
For Malema - whether his many critics like it or not - has become one of the most feared, most powerful and most influential figures in the ANC in recent times. And he has been spot on with his “predictions” in the past. For example, a week before anyone else knew that then President Thabo Mbeki was to be fired, Malema was telling the world that it was a foregone conclusion.
And when Malema started making remarks about minorities, race and transformation in government and business, it soon became a rejuvenated national debate spearheaded by the ANC, the Departments of Labour and Trade & Industry, and by organisations such as the Black Management Forum (BMF). It still dominates with many calls for a revamp, among other things, of broad-based black economic empowerment and the seven scorecard elements used in its application.
And the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) came out backing Malema when he objected to the number of ministers from minority groups running economics cluster ministries. It was also Malema who knew, long before anybody else, that former Education Minister Naledi Pandor’s star was busy falling and that it was therefore safe to attack her in public. Although some in the ANC huffed and puffed at his brashness and he had to apologise to Pandor, no action was taken against him and Pandor has since been shunted sideways to head the politically insignificant Science and Technology portfolio.
Malema has the ear and protection of President Jacob Zuma and other influential figures in the ANC Alliance. He often accompanies Zuma on important missions. Malema has also received the blessing of Nelson Mandela who requested private time with Malema shortly before the April general election. In fact, there are many in the ANC and elsewhere who see in Malema a latter-day Mandela who himself, like Malema, once headed the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and also had a reputation as one who spoke his mind, albeit perhaps more politely and more articulately.
A further demonstration of Malema’s standing in the ANC was offered by the newspaper The Mail & Guardian last week when some of its reporters waited in line for an interview with Malema at Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters. The paper’s reporters described how important people such as Kirsten Nematandani, the newly elected South African Football Association (Safa) head, the leaders of the National African Federated Chambers of Commerce (Nafcoc), former ANC spin doctor Carl Niehaus and others were humbly made to wait in line for an audience with Malema...who kept them waiting.
Even the influential new Deputy Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula, himself once an ANCYL president and now would-be challenger for the position of ANC secretary-general currently held by Gwede Mantashe, was told by Malema to wait his turn until Malema had worked his way through the queue of people outside his office.
Malema is not without enemies in the ANC and the ANCYL. There are many who are seeking to topple him, but they have never dared to step forward out of their anonymity. It is also common knowledge in the ANC that Malema digs and keeps on file the dirt on all influential or potentially influential people in the Alliance and that he is not averse to using it to blackmail them to get his way.
The esteem in which he is held in the ANC is also evident from the fact that a special group of elder advisers was established in the ANC to help guide Malema and raise him politically for a future role. And even Zuma’s spokesman, Zizi Kodwa, has indicated, according to the Mail & Guardian, that a great future awaits Malema in the ANC.
Malema derives his power from the fact that he brings to the ANC the critical youth constituency which backs him. He also speaks the language of the downtrodden, the marginalised, the impoverished masses and, important, of the militant formations in the Alliance. In this regard he has picked up where Winnie Madikizela-Mandela left off. Furthermore, he has powerful connections like Zuma and Cosatu’s Zwelinzima Vavi and he enjoys the backing of Cosatu and the SACP among others.
Therefore, against this contextual perspective, when Malema says the mines will be nationalised, notice should be taken by all concerned. When Malema first raised the issue, Zuma, Mantashe and Mining Minister Susan Shabangu immediately tried to calm the panic that set in by rejecting any such notion. However, within days Mantashe changed his position and called for a debate on nationalising the mines, a call since taken up by many others in the ANC. And Cosatu and the SACP gave Malema their full backing.
Since then the government decided to undertake an audit of the state’s mining interests while discussions around the establishment of a state mining company were renewed and the role of an existing state mining company, the African Exploration Mining Finance Corporation, was re-examined. In addition any further disposal of state mining interests was suspended.
Last week Malema told the annual conference of the Black Management Forum that the nationalisation of mines in South Africa, as called for in the Freedom Charter, would inevitably happen. Malema seemed to favour the Botswana model where the state, according to him, owns 51% of a mine, with private interests holding the other 49%. The bottom-line, it would seem, is that where Malema makes smoke, there may well be fire.
