Misadventures of a Cope Volunteer

By Michiel le Roux

What happens when you form a political party six months before a general election? And instantly become the hope of the nation?Mostly chaos! At least that is what 26-year-old Michiel le Roux encountered when he quit his enviable job as a banker at Absa to “make a difference”. He volunteered for the Congress of the People (Cope) and became part of their 2009 election campaign. Very soon, he loses his political innocence in a party paralysed by power struggles, lack of funds and administrative capacity. Fortunately, he keeps his sense of humour amid duties which include rushing to Pretoria at breakneck speed to submit the party’s candidate lists, fending off supporters intent on getting a Cope T-shirt – of which there are none – and driving then-party leader Mosiuoa Lekota to rallies.Uproariously funny, this warts-and-all take on Cope also offers caustic comment on the state of politics in South Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780624050889

Book preview

Misadventures of a COPE Volunteer

Michiel le Roux

Tafelberg

This book is dedicated to everyone who shared the Cope dream, especially those who made great sacrifices to follow that dream.

Foreword

It is often the case that when great events happen, the people most affected by them fail, at the time, to comprehend their full impact. Many South Africans are yet to realise how much the birth of the Congress of the People (Cope) has, in fact, affected their lives and will influence the trajectory of their future.

In spite of regular references to the failures of democracies in Africa, and especially to the latest challenges just across our border in Zimbabwe, not many people in South Africa viewed the birth of Cope as an event that was closely linked to changing the course of African politics. The course we refer to is the description of the first 50 years of independence by Martin Meredith as ‘The fate of Africa’, which has now become a generally accepted term.

Many people have described the birth of Cope in a very simplistic way as an event solely linked to the outcomes of the Polokwane Conference of the African National Congress (ANC) and very little else. In fact, even though many people who joined the party did so at great personal sacrifice, they were generally viewed as people who left the ANC in a huff after losing power in Polokwane. But historic events, of which the formation of Cope was one, can seldom be explained so simplistically.

The birth of the Congress of the People, and especially its claim to its name, as well as to the founding principles of democracy in our country – the Freedom Charter – brought about a change in the South African political landscape like no other event in recent history. The ability of Cope to lay claim to struggle credentials and as a genuine representative of the people in post-apartheid South Africa has ushered in a new era which allows ordinary citizens to reclaim patriotism. The era where a patriot could only be defined by years served in exile, the under-ground or prison, or being a member of a particular party, is now happily behind us. By calling on South Africans to rally together in support of our Constitution and constitutional democracy, Cope has ushered in a new era of patriotism open to South Africans of all persuasions.

In giving us the Congress of the People through his eyes, Michiel le Roux has begun the all important task of telling South Africans and the world what this young party is. As a young person who was intimately involved in some of the work, he can lay claim to knowing enough in order to fill in some gaps in this important story about the beginning of the end of the de facto one-party rule in one of Africa’s most promising democracies. The story of Cope will surely still be written by many and from different perspectives, but this is a very good start.

Those of us who are in Cope see its establishment and our involvement in it as a logical continuation of the struggle for democracy in South Africa. Having learnt from experience that to every generation a mission is assigned, we understood that the historic mission of today’s generation of parties is the liberation of our country and people through development. It is a different but not less important task of political liberation.

As a party rooted in the Congress tradition, Cope has the historic mission of internalising and embodying the principles of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), especially that of good governance as a basic requirement for peace, security and sustainable development. But when people came to join the party, there were many who saw this not as a long-term project to help change the political landscape of South Africa and, in the long run, of Africa, but as a quick get-rich or -famous scheme. The challenges of impatience, elements of racial and other intolerance, disdain for knowledge and experience in the name of militancy, arrogance and lack of respect, undemocratic practices, personality cults, fraud, lack of accountability and abuse of power began to manifest themselves quickly and almost became a culture in the party.

The decision to combat these tendencies is what has led to the tensions in the party today, which unfortunately, once again, have been simplistically summarised as in-fighting between two leaders and their factions for positions.

What has been most gratifying, however, is that there have been enough members of the Party and South Africans who refused to succumb to the notion that ours must inherently be a corrupt party, country and continent, and have decided that our party must be in the forefront of changing this course, which we earlier recalled as ‘The fate of Africa’.

This personal account of the Congress of the People provides a much-needed window into the life of a party that could still come to govern South Africa. A party that will be a defining feature of the next 50 years of African politics within the context of an African Renaissance. A party of a new generation of South African patriots.

Lyndall Shope-Mafole*

Party leader in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and Head of International Relations of Cope 

* Lyndall Shope-Mafole served as Director General and Chief Accounting Officer of the Department of Communications from 2004 until her resignation in January 2009, when she started to work as a full-time volunteer for Cope. Among others, she also served as Councillor of the Independent Broadcasting Authority from 1994 to 1997, and as Chairperson and Head of the Presidential National Commission on the Information Society from 2002 to 2004.

Main characters

Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota, Cope co-founder and president

Born: 13 August 1948

Struggle credentials:

Became full-time organiser for South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in1974

Imprisoned at Robben Island Prison for ‘conspiring to commitacts endangering the maintenance of law and order’ in1974

Released and elected publicity secretary of the United Democratic Front in1983

Detained in1985and later sentenced in the Delmas Treason Trial

Post-1994 politics:

Premier of the Free State1994–1996

Minister of Defence1999–2008

African National Congress (ANC) National Chairperson1997–2007

Said to be a staunch Mbeki-ite

Interesting fact: His nickname, Terror, refers to his skills as a soccer player.

Other: Lekota’s cell phone never stops ringing; he always has time for fans, likes driving fast, doesn’t mind eating takeaways on a street corner and always keeps the bones for his dog.

Mbhazima ‘Sam’ Shilowa, Cope co-founder and deputy president

Born: 30 April 1958

Struggle credentials:

Joined the trade union movement in1981and later becamepresident of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union

Played a prominent role in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in1985

Part of the ANC’s negotiating team at the Convention for aDemocratic South Africa (Codesa) in Kempton Park in theearly nineties

Post-1994 politics:

Cosatu General Secretary1993–1999

Premier of Gauteng Province1999–2008

Interesting fact: Credited with instigating Gauteng’s Gautrain project, which was initially dubbed the ‘Shilowa Express’.

Other: After moving to Johannesburg in 1979 Shilowa briefly worked as a security guard at The Star newspaper offices. Decades later, as premier of Gauteng, he became famous for always wearing red socks. Nowadays hangs out in fancy restaurants, and is rumoured to have expensive tastes in wine.

Lynda Odendaal, briefly Cope second deputy president

Born: 23 September 1964

Political history: None

Professional background: Appointed chief executive officer of Network Support Services, an IT service management solutions company, in 2005

Interesting fact: Stands a mere 1.5m tall, but what she lacks in height she makes up for in vigour.

Other: As a businesswoman, she offered Cope office space during the election campaign. She was a volunteer at the party’s founding conference in Bloemfontein and was busy working on the delegate database when, to her great surprise, her name was announced as a party leader.

Juli Kilian, Cope’s National Party Liaison Committee representative to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)

Born: 31 July 1952

Political history:

Started as a National Party (NP) volunteer in the1980s, and later became an NP election campaign manager

Served on the Johannesburg City Council1991–1994

Member of the Gauteng provincial legislature1994–2004

Briefly joined the Democratic Alliance (DA) after the NP dissolved, before becoming involved with Cope

Interesting fact: Juli is a real elections guru, the kind who can quote legislative clauses off the cuff. She has an insider contact in every political party and at every news desk around the country.

Other: She is also a closet landscape architect and, despite having mastered the double-click, suffers from occasional bouts of technophobia.

Johan Kilian, Cope’s election manager

Born: 17 June 1942

Political history:

National Party youth leader1964–1974

Served in various positions in the NP over the following three decades, eventually becoming a National Executive Council member

Administrator of Vaal Triangle townships, including Sebokeng, Bophelong, Sharpeville and Boipatong, during the transition years

Provincial leader of New NP in Gauteng1997–2004

Member of the Gauteng provincial legislature1994–2004

Interesting fact: Johan’s involvement in politics dates back further into the past than most history books care to delve. He has been around forever and there isn’t a predicament on earth for which he does not have an anecdote, usually from his National Party days. He is proud of his Afrikaner heritage without harbouring any bitterness about the new South Africa.

Other: Married to Juli Kilian. Johan is as much an extension of Juli as she is of him; they are a formidable team.

Moeketsi Mosola, Cope’s chairman of the National Elections Task Team

Born: 23 May 1963

Political history:

Spent most of his life in the United States after going there to study

Returned to South Africa after democratisation and became CEO of SA Tourism (2004–2009)

Interesting fact: Moeketsi is the ultimate boss to work for. He is to the point, decisive and goal-orientated. He likes a glass of whiskey and has a passion for sport.

Mvume Dandala, Cope’s 2009 presidential candidate

Born: 26 October 1951

Professional background:

Limited early-life political involvement, e.g. serving as the local chairman of the South African Student Organisation (SASO) at the Federal Theological Seminary in Alice

Former presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, and a former head of the All Africa Council of Churches

Interesting fact: Dandala has the friendliest smile in the business. He has a mischievous way of looking at you over his glasses as if you’ve been friends for years.

‘The one thing you can say without hesitation is that we

are united on the basis that the national Constitution as it stands today

must be defended and democracy must be deepened.’

– Mosiuoa Lekota, November 2008

‘Why struggle if you can Cope?’

– Mbhazima Shilowa, February 2009

Introduction

On 12 December 2008 the North Gauteng High Court ruled that the phrase ‘Congress of the People’ did not belong to the governing African National Congress (ANC). This ruling enabled a new political formation that had been ruffling feathers in South African politics for a few months to call itself by that name.

A month later, a further objection against the registration of the acronym ‘Cope’ by the Cape Party was dismissed by the Electoral Commission and later also the Electoral Court. Thus, after several months of being a nameless movement, the breakaway faction from the ANC finally acquired a name. The Congress of the People entered my life when it was still a nameless movement. The date was 1 November 2008 and the place the Sandton Convention Centre.

But I was a bit of a Johnny-come-lately: According to the founders of the party, the seed for the formation of a new political party had already been planted shortly after the ANC’s Polokwane conference in December 2007, where Jacob Zuma replaced Thabo Mbeki as president of the ruling party. Mbeki supporters believed that Zuma’s populist rhetoric and his blemished past rendered him unfit to lead the party, and also that his supporters’ lack of discipline was an ominous sign of what the ANC could become if Zuma was elected President. They also felt that Mbeki was treated unfairly at the conference and that the electoral process was rigged. Most of the Mbeki supporters who held prominent positions in the party were voted out and several others resigned.

Following Zuma’s victory after a carefully coordinated campaign for the leadership of the ANC, the ruling party, and ultimately the country, was expected to change significantly. As leader of the ANC it was all but certain that he would become the next South African President, which his opponents feared would result in an economic leap to the left, the undermining of the country’s judiciary