MATHEWS PHOSA, former premier of Mpumalanga and former ANC treasurer, in his book Witness to Power – a Political Memoir, provides an honest (at least on the surface) and insightful look at the inner workings of the ANC since the early 1980s. It is also a reminder that there are still decent leaders in the party.
Phosa, a lawyer and nowadays also a successful businessman, differs somewhat from most other ANC figures in his absolute commitment to non-racialism – he has often been the target of smear campaigns for employing white people – and in his love of Afrikaans. (The book’s co-author is his old friend and right-hand man, Pieter Rootman.)
Phosa recounts that after his military training in East Berlin (where, in 1985, he was allowed to observe a military parade but only from behind a one-way window to conceal his black face), he was stationed in Mozambique when Pres. Samora Machel informed him that his intelligence people were struggling to understand intercepted South African information because it was in Afrikaans.
Phosa then developed a course in Afrikaans for Mozambican officials and taught classes in it. He also distributed Afrikaans books among schools.
“Of all my tasks in exile, this was one of the most enjoyable. Not only did I contribute to the Mozambican intelligence community but also to the export of Afrikaans to a neighbouring state. I expanded my own knowledge, learning new nuances through the study material we smuggled into the country, and was able to keep the language on my tongue and practice it daily.
“I am not ashamed to say this period deepened my love of the beautiful Afrikaans language and contributed to my writing in it.” (He has published a poetry collection in Afrikaans, Deur die oog van 'n naald [Through the Eye of a Needle].)
Phosa was a classmate of Cyril Ramaphosa at the University of the North but was much closer to Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma before 1994. Yet he played a strong role in the fall of both Mbeki and Zuma and later began to support Ramaphosa.
He recounts visits with Mbeki in London in the 1980s, saying: “These working trips brought me closer to Mbeki. He was strategic, sharp, and guiding … We established trust.”
He worked under Zuma in Maputo and Lusaka, and they later served together on the ANC’s negotiating team. “He is an extremely charming person, comrade, brother, and friend. We were, throughout the years, very close and trusted one another.”
None of these friendships endured, and praise turned into serious criticism.
After 1990, Phosa became a confidant of Nelson Mandela, witnessing the tense relationship between him and Mbeki.
He writes that Mbeki was a master strategist who clearly visualised how the post-1990 negotiation would unfold. But Mbeki was not chosen as one of the top leaders at the 1991 conference, and Ramaphosa was appointed head of the negotiating committee, with Zuma as his assistant.
“There was silent tension brewing, as Mbeki did not take kindly to the new arrangement,” writes Phosa. Mbeki’s mentor, Oliver Tambo, then suggested that Zuma should become the chief negotiator, but this was ignored, and Ramaphosa retained the position.
Phosa says Mandela consulted him on who should be the first deputy president after 1994. Mandela proposed Ramaphosa, especially because he had the support of Cosatu and the SACP. The latter should not be the only consideration, Phosa says he told Mandela.
“I also cautioned Mandela that Mbeki would sulk if he heard that he would be overlooked, especially because Oliver Tambo had groomed him for years to become the future ANC president.” Phosa suggested that Mandela consult Zuma on the matter, and on Zuma’s advice, Mandela abandoned his preference for Ramaphosa.
After Phosa became the premier of Mpumalanga in May 1994, his relationship with Mbeki soured. “I believe he felt uncomfortable with my close relationship with Mandela,” he writes.
Mandela was aware of Mbeki’s attempts to remove him as premier, says Phosa, and promised him he would remain secure in his position as long as Mandela was president. In 1999, Mbeki indeed replaced him as premier, and the two had an unpleasant phone conversation. “There was no love lost between us, and our exchange could not be described as warm and comradely. It was a call from someone who was taking over power and wanted his lieutenants in place.”
Mbeki said Phosa could become a member of parliament: “I told him that I would never in my life serve under him.”
In 2001, Mbeki’s fox terrier, Steve Tshwete, then minister of safety and security, announced on television that Phosa, Ramaphosa, and Tokyo Sexwale had plotted to overthrow Mbeki.
Mbeki, “in his typical vague and convoluted Anglo-Saxon English way,” declared that there was enough evidence for an investigation. “In doing so,” writes Phosa, “he gave credibility to a blatant lie and forever lost my respect.” (Tshwete later apologised to Phosa, saying all the accusations were false.)
And so Phosa was in the Zuma camp when Mbeki stood for a third term as ANC leader at the Polokwane conference in 2007 and was humiliated by the Zuma victory. Phosa was elected ANC treasurer.
Unlike the usual practice, Mbeki never again attended meetings of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) or working committee. At the NEC meeting on September 19, 2008, most members were in favour of removing him as president, and ultimately, a written proposal from Phosa in this regard was accepted.
Mbeki resigned on September 21, three years before his term was to end.
Terror Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa broke away three months later and formed the Congress of the People. “The split was disappointing, but nothing compared to the divisions that remained in the ANC itself,” writes Phosa.
Despite his own significant role, Phosa writes: “The truth is that there was no winner at Polokwane. The ANC was the biggest loser. It lost its unity, cohesion, and moral high ground. The deep wounds opened at the conference are still hemorrhaging. I doubt the ANC will ever recover from the fallout at that conference and Mbeki’s recall.”
He says that during the next ANC conferences, the divisions deepened. “Polokwane was reckless, brutal, and nasty. Mbeki, Zuma, and the rest of us must take collective responsibility. We buried the ANC at Polokwane.”
As ANC treasurer, Phosa’s first encounter with the Gupta brothers was early in 2008 when Zuma took him to their mansion in Saxonwold. There he encountered Brian Molefe, then head of the Public Investment Corporation, who clearly felt at home in the household.
The Guptas wanted to donate money to the ANC and to have other international companies do the same. An account was opened in Dubai for this purpose, but shortly after that, the Guptas requested that they receive a third of such funds, Zuma a third, and the ANC a third. Later, Phosa was asked to withdraw his signature from the account. He refused in both cases.
Phosa also recounts how the brothers unexpectedly showed up at a meeting of the ANC’s top six and proposed government support for a pro-ANC newspaper, The New Age. Phosa objected, but state departments and provinces later supported the newspaper through advertisements. Phosa says after his objection the newspaper and the Guptas’ TV channel, ANN7, persistently attacked him as an enemy of Zuma.
Phosa tells in detail how Zuma was asked in 2011 to negotiate for peace in Libya. Phosa accompanied him to meetings with Muammar Gaddafi: “The rumours were repeatedly denied by the party at the highest level, but the truth is that the ANC did, under successive treasurers-general, receive donations from Gaddafi. I, for one, played a role in securing some of that money.” Phosa describes the amount as “substantial”.
The Libyan opposition hoped Zuma would help them broker peace and take over from Gaddafi, and he was initially so inclined, but after another visit to Gaddafi in Tripoli, he suddenly changed his tune. At the time, Libyan opposition members told the media that Gaddafi had bribed Zuma.
These opposition leaders spoke about billions in dollars and gold that were taken to Nkandla shortly before Gaddafi’s death, and Phosa says a CIA delegation also questioned him about it. He asked the governor of the Reserve Bank, Lesetja Kganyago, to track the relevant bank account, but he could not find it. To him, it sounded like the myths about the Kruger millions, says Phosa, but he does not write about the possibility that the billions were stashed in a storeroom rather than deposited into a bank account.
Phosa was the first ANC member to demand that Zuma resign as president after the Constitutional Court’s damning verdict on the Nkandla scandal, while the leadership continued to defend him.
But his Damascus moment, Phosa writes, came in February 2017 when the DA proposed that parliament observe a minute of silence to commemorate the deaths of 94 people in the Life Esidimeni tragedy. Speaker Baleka Mbete refused.
“I came to the realisation that the ANC that refused the motion was not the party I grew up in, and certainly not the party that campaigned on the slogan ‘A better life for all’.”
At the ANC’s national conference in 2017, Phosa sided with Ramaphosa, who was running for party president against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and won. When the NEC considered telling Zuma to resign as president of the country, Zuma asked Phosa for advice. “He greeted me as if the years of silence between us had never happened.” Phosa insisted that he resign immediately, which he did shortly after.
Phosa says Zuma never accepted that his ex-wife and proxy had lost to Ramaphosa. “The formation of the [MK Party] was a deliberate, calculated move by Zuma to get back at Ramaphosa, whom he holds in contempt.”
Phosa’s judgment on the state of the ANC is sharp. “The reasons for the decline were clear for all to see: endemic corruption, unchecked crime, state capture, AIDS denialism, paranoia, a lack of decisive leadership, and inefficient administration through the deployment of unqualified or corrupt cadres.
“My view is that the ANC will decline further in the years leading up to the next general election. The MKP will flourish as long as the government dithers on delivery, and in the process, Julius Malema’s EFF will steadily lose support.” He does wonder whether the MKP could maintain momentum after Zuma’s passing.
Mathews Phosa dreams a dream shared by many other South Africans: “Is there space for a new party that can mobilise the support of the new generation of educated, ambitious, entrepreneurial voters who yearn for honest, effective, and inclusive government?”
♦ VWB ♦
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Max du Preez is the editor-in-chief of Vrye Weekblad. He was the founding editor of the original Vrye Weekblad.
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