The Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) has dropped a bombshell when it stated that there is a leadership vacuum in the ANC to confront various critical challenges in the country, and the organisation is embarking on a national “pilgrimage” to rescue Africa’s oldest liberation movement.
The organisation that represents traditional leaders across the country said this in a letter it wrote to former ANC treasurer-general Matthew Phosa, in which it seeks an audience with him to discuss its concerns.
Phosa is among various former ANC leaders, former presidents and former provincial premiers Contralesa has written to request a meeting, as part of its national pilgrimage, to meet with them to ventilate their frustrations with the problems besieging the ANC.
“The national executive committee of Contralesa is deeply concerned about the escalating political instability, fragmentation among progressive forces, resurgence of ultra-right tendencies, endemic poverty, rising unemployment, rampant criminality, corruption, and the apparent leadership vacuum in confronting these challenges.
“Contralesa hereby requests an audience with you, in the hope of drawing on your wisdom regarding the immense challenges currently confronting our country.
“Contralesa is undertaking a national pilgrimage to consult with senior leaders and stakeholders across the nation. The central purpose of these engagements is to deliberate on the deteriorating political, social, and economic conditions gripping our beloved country” read the letter.
Contralesa added that it is of the firm view that the gravity of the situation demands the urgent attention and collective action of all who cherish the future of South Africa.
“Contralesa remains steadfast in its commitment to moral regeneration and addressing the pressing national questions of our time.”
Speaking to Sunday World, Contralesa secretary-general Zolani Mkiva confirmed that it had asked for an audience with Phosa. “We can no longer say, as the liberation movement, that we are leaders of society under the current circumstances when we have lost power. Our movement has lost the centrality that it used to have. It has lost the authority that it used to have.”
Mkiva also said the strained relationship between the ANC and its tripartite alliance is one of the areas of concern. “Even the motive forces themselves are disunited and disintegrating; the ANC no longer has good relations with the SACP and Cosatu. Cosatu itself was broken. It’s affecting us negatively as a country, because now, with this disunity, it’s very easy for us to be sidetracked and be defocused from the actual core things that we ought to be focused on because we are pulling each other this way and that way.
“The political formations are at each other’s throats. The situation is very bad. It’s very bad and dire, and it needs an intervention,” he said.
He was optimistic that their “pilgrimage” would guide them in the right direction to rescue the late Oliver Tambo’s legacy.
“You can hear from the tone of the letter written to Phosa. We are taking a pilgrimage exercise, where we will be going throughout the country to see the kings, the queens and traditional leadership structures, and also meet with the church leaders, spiritual leaders, and then over and above that, we are seeing former presidents, former speakers, former chief justices and former senior leaders who were premiers and also prominent in the liberation, for the reasons that are provided in that letter.
“So our engagement with Phosa is part and parcel of that exercise,” he said.
“We have also written to many of his counterparts, like Tokyo Sexwale and the guys that were there from the beginning, who were part of the formative stages of the democratic dispensation. So the intention is to tap into their wisdom.
“Because things are where they are now, we can’t fold our arms as traditional leadership anymore. The liberation movement itself was established by our forefathers traditionally, but with what is now happening in the country, which is building to instability and uncertainty, we have to come to the centre stage and make a contribution with the view of turning around the situation in the country.
There is instability in society at large,” he said.
He added: “The levels of criminality have reached grotesque proportions; criminals are running the streets. The police cannot cope with the situation. So, it’s both in society and in government; it’s everywhere.
“We will also be consulting with government leaders themselves because we can’t pretend as if we do not see what is happening. And we’re pointing out exactly those issues that I raised in that Phosa’s letter,” he said.
Mkiva said they had started with their consultation in May and are hoping to map a way forward when they are done with the “pilgrimage” in the next few months.
“We are hoping that for the next two to three months we’re going to be seized with that matter. We have just started now in the middle of May. So, it will be June or July, by August, mid-August; we want to conclude it. And then we are going to formulate a position on what steps we are going to take to turn around the situation in our country,” Mkiva said.
