There comes a moment in every revolutionary movement when a difficult question must be asked.
When does guidance become interference?
When does wisdom become entitlement?
When does a respected elder cease to be a custodian of history and begin acting as a permanent supervisor of the future?
These questions arise because of the continued public interventions of former President Thabo Mbeki. Let me state from the outset that this is not an attack on his contribution to the struggle. History has already recorded his role in the liberation movement, in government, and in advancing the African Renaissance. No serious ANC member can deny those contributions.
But respect for history cannot require silence in the face of conduct that weakens organisational discipline.
The ANC is not a museum where former leaders preserve themselves as permanent exhibits of authority. It is a living movement governed by its Constitution, its conferences, its elected structures and, above all, its members.
The movement belongs to those who build it every day in branches, communities, workplaces and voting stations. It does not belong to former Presidents.
It does not belong to former Secretary Generals.
It does not belong to veterans.
It belongs to the membership.
That principle is not negotiable.
What many ordinary ANC members find increasingly troubling is not that President Mbeki disagrees with the current leadership. Disagreement is natural. Debate is healthy. Criticism is legitimate.
The concern is the method.
The ANC possesses structures through which concerns can be raised. Former Presidents are not isolated from the movement. They enjoy extraordinary access to leadership. They are listened to. They are consulted. They are respected. They are invited into strategic discussions. Their views carry weight before a single word reaches the public domain.
The ordinary branch member does not enjoy such access.
The ordinary volunteer who hangs posters, mobilises voters, defends the movement on street corners and attends branch meetings can only dream of the access available to a former President.
Which raises a simple question.
Why choose public letters?
Why choose media controversy?
Why choose interventions that immediately become front page ammunition for political opponents?
Why create a spectacle when internal avenues remain available?
The answer cannot simply be concern for the movement because concern for the movement begins with protecting its cohesion.
The answer cannot simply be commitment to democracy because democracy already exists within ANC structures.
The answer cannot simply be principle because principle without organisational discipline becomes individualism.
This is where the matter becomes politically uncomfortable.
There appears to be an expectation that the ANC must continuously justify itself before a tribunal of former authority. There appears to be a belief that former leadership confers a permanent supervisory mandate over present leadership.
It does not.
Conference elects leaders.
Conference determines mandates.
Conference settles succession questions.
That is how democratic movements survive.
The alternative is rule by nostalgia.
History offers countless warnings.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk reminded the Turkish nation that sovereignty belongs to the people unconditionally. Not to former rulers. Not to former elites. Not to historical personalities. To the people.
Julius Nyerere repeatedly warned against paternalism and the belief that one generation acquires ownership over future generations merely because of past sacrifices.
Even revolutionary movements across Asia understood this principle. Their greatest successes emerged when institutions became stronger than personalities. The Asian Tigers did not transform themselves by preserving permanent authority for retired leaders. They built systems capable of renewing leadership and adapting to changing realities.
No organisation can remain healthy if yesterday’s authority becomes today’s veto.
No liberation movement can remain democratic if former leaders behave as though electoral mandates expire for everyone except themselves.
The irony is profound.
The ANC that elevated Thabo Mbeki also elevated Cyril Ramaphosa.
The movement that entrusted Mbeki with leadership has entrusted Ramaphosa with leadership.
One mandate cannot be sacred while the other is treated as provisional.
One conference cannot be celebrated while another is questioned.
One democratic outcome cannot be accepted while another is subjected to endless public scrutiny.
The principle must remain consistent.
Either the ANC respects the authority of its elected structures or it does not.
The organisation cannot function on the basis that every major decision requires informal approval from retired authority figures before implementation.
That is not democracy.
That is guardianship masquerading as guidance.
It is particularly difficult to understand because President Ramaphosa himself demonstrated a lesson in political maturity that many seem eager to forget.
When political circumstances shifted against him in the late 1990s, he did not embark upon a decades long campaign of public correction against those who prevailed. He did not issue open letters questioning every strategic decision. He stepped back. He accepted the organisational outcome. He waited for democratic processes to run their course.
Leadership requires the ability to lead.
Political maturity requires the ability to follow.
A revolutionary movement cannot survive if everyone accepts leadership only when they occupy the highest office.
That principle applies equally to branch members, ministers, NEC members and former Presidents.
The ANC has survived banning, imprisonment, exile, assassination campaigns, infiltration and state repression. It survived because generations of leaders understood a simple truth.
No individual is bigger than the movement.
Not Oliver Tambo.
Not Nelson Mandela.
Not Thabo Mbeki.
Not Jacob Zuma.
Not Cyril Ramaphosa.
Not any leader who came before.
Not any leader who will come after.
The movement is bigger than all of them.
That is why the current pattern of public intervention should concern every disciplined ANC member regardless of faction, preference or personal loyalty.
Today the issue may be a letter.
Tomorrow it may become a precedent.
A precedent that former leaders can publicly pressure elected leaders whenever they disagree.
A precedent that conference outcomes remain perpetually contestable.
A precedent that historical prestige outranks contemporary mandate.
That road ends badly for every democratic organisation.
The ANC must therefore recover a simple but essential truth.
Former Presidents deserve respect.
They deserve recognition.
They deserve a hearing.
They deserve gratitude.
But they do not possess ownership rights over the future of the movement.
History deserves honour.
History does not govern.
The living movement must govern itself.
The ANC belongs to its members, not its former Presidents.
And if the movement forgets that principle, it risks allowing yesterday’s battles to become tomorrow’s chains.
The struggle was never fought to create permanent rulers.
It was fought to ensure that leadership would always remain accountable to the collective will of the people.
That principle remains as true today as it was yesterday.
And it will remain true long after all of today’s leaders have themselves become history.
By Stan Itshegetseng (ANC member)
