By Sipho Singiswa
It is well known that the ANC is a male-dominated hierarchy that mostly pays lip-service to gender equality, despite its policies and historical mandate to ensure the emancipation of Native African women. While the party showed some promise in the early days of the new democracy to enact gender equality, we are yet to see a woman president. This signals its failure to live up to the expectations of women in the ANC and South Africa at large. In order to appear politically correct, the ANC has, for many years, made empty claims around women’s rights and gender equality without enacting any real change for women.
No doubt this is tied up to the ANC’s abandoning of the Freedom Charter ideals and its buy-in to the neoliberal economy and ideology. This resulted in foregrounding the mandate of the patriarchal white business sector. ANC leaders were invited into the gentlemen’s club of settler corporate moguls where plenty of self-serving masculine back-patting and under-the-table boys-club deals were done. President Ramaphosa was, and remains, a major proponent for this shift from liberation ideals to neoliberalism.
This systemic misogyny has remained rooted in the ANC twenty-eight years on and like so many other broken promises to the people, the consistent lack of implementation of women’s rights and gender equality within its ranks is inconsistent with the ANC’s initial spirit of robust debate. It also shows itself in the chauvinistic attitudes and actions of certain ANC leaders, not least President Cyril Ramaphosa, to censor, coerce into submission, and silence female comrades who freely and truthfully express opinions, not in keeping with the conservative views of the ANC boys club and their patriarchal corporate funders.
These masculine maneuvers were seen most recently in response to long-serving NEC member, Lindiwe Sisulu’s article: Hi Mzansi, have we seen justice? This piece caused an uproar in the media and vicious backlash from some members of the judiciary who were outraged by her critique of them as “mentally colonised.” Various ANC seniors also called for Sisulu to be disciplined by President Ramaphosa, who subsequently called a meeting with her. After the meeting, it was reported to the media from the president’s office that Sisulu would withdraw her statements and had unequivocally apologised for her utterances about the judiciary.
Ramaphosa’s assumption that Sisulu had apologized was patronising and presumptuous, as was his punitive approach when he supported the call for her to be dragged to the Independent Commission after she denied publicly that she had apologised, effectively rendering him a liar. Hauled in front of the Integrity Commission (IC) Sisulu delivered a precise and unapologetic submission outlining the intellectual premise for her utterances and asserting her right to free speech. The outcome of this commission is yet to be released to the public.
This is not the first time Sisulu has been rebuked by Ramaphosa for showing her metal and leadership. As written in Gillian Schutte’s piece: Ramaphosa’s shameless hypocrisy on the Israeli resolution, Sisulu met his ire when on 05 April 2009, in her capacity as International Relations and Cooperation Minister, she announced publicly that the downgrading of the South African Embassy in Israel was in place. This followed a resolution taken by the ANC after Israel’s heinous attack on Palestine in 2018 when they withdrew the South African Ambassador from Israel. Sisulu stated that this was the first part of the process and that the downgrade of the Israeli embassy in South Africa was the next step. However, in May 2019, and only days before the national elections, in a pre-election interview with the Jewish Report, Ramaphosa contradicted her when he stated that Cabinet had not yet approved the downgrade. Sisulu became the target of a well-orchestrated attack on her, mainly from the Jewish community. Led by the national vice-president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), Zev Krengel, he said in The Jewish Report article released on May 16 2019 that, “International Relations and Cooperation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is “the single biggest enemy” in government to South African Jewry.”
By the time Ramaphosa announced his new cabinet, Sisulu was snubbed by him, not only as Deputy President, she was redeployed from her International Relations portfolio back to Human Settlements and Water and Sanitation. To add insult to injury in 2022 President Ramaphosa received letters of credence from Israeli ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky, in Pretoria. By so doing he effectively overturned the completion of the Israeli downgrade and essentially showed Sisulu ‘her place as a woman in the ANC.’
Sisulu also met with Ramaphosa’s surreptitious fury when, in her role as Minister of Human Settlements and Water and Sanitation, she instituted several criminal cases against senior officials within the water department when she uncovered a web on corruption that spread far and wide. Sisulu said the outcomes of such cases after disciplinary action were as follows:
- 97 officials were found guilty;
- 16 officials were found not guilty; and
- 24 officials resigned.
Sources report that instead of offering support to root out further corruption or congratulate her on her findings, the president chose to remove Sisulu from her position and redeployed her to Minister of Tourism. So much for his lip service to anti-corruption. Some whisper that he was under pressure to get Sisulu out of the way. They whisper that those who are in his camp are automatic beneficiaries of his protection and that Sisulu’s anti-corruption mandate was causing major conflict for the president.
Sisulu clearly poses a real challenge to Ramaphosa who is caught between a rock and hard place in deciding what to do with her. Firstly, she is senior to him in the ranks of the ANC. Secondly, it would not sit well with many inside the ANC and on the branch level if he were to fire Sisulu as this would further fracture the already splintered ANC. Ramaphosa also stands to lose a substantial following if he sacks her as Sisulu is already a popular presidential candidate with branches and is seen to be a strong contender for the Pan Africanist faction within the ANC. This could see Ramaphosa losing even more of his dwindling popularity. Further, Sisulu’s family legacy cannot be separated from who she is. Her promise to bring back the revolutionary spirit to the ANC is rooted in the Sisulu family’s commitment to the struggle for freedom and equality for all. It rings a resounding bell of renewed hope to the people who are gatvol of being pushed further and further outside any semblance of the sociopolitical economy.
Most importantly there is a growing urgency and sentiment to appoint a woman president and break the patriarchal hold on the party. Sisulu, as a soldier, academic, daughter, mother, and long-time ANC leader with a fine track record and anti-corruption stance has all the necessary ingredients to become the next president of South Africa. Many are of the opinion that it is Sisulu who will bring the ANC back to itself after Ramaphosa’s disastrous leadership. They believe it is Sisulu who will restore and revive the heart and soul of the party.
*Sipho Singiswa is a political commentator and filmmaker. He is co-founder of Media for Justice and Director of Media and International Programming of The Robben Island Ex-Political Prisoner International Human Rights Program.
