There are a handful of ANC members calling for Ronald Lamola, the justice & correctional services minister, to be elevated to the deputy presidency of the party. They emphasise his age (he turns 39 on November 21), saying the party needs “new blood”. They point at the youthfulness of the UK’s Rishi Sunak (42), France’s Emmanuel Macron (44), Finland’s Sanna Marin (36), and others, and ask: Why is SA saddled with aged political leaders?
Lamola has agreed to run for the deputy presidency of the party. In my humble opinion, he has no chance of winning. Paul Mashatile, the current treasurer, has sewn up most of the votes for that position. That said, Lamola is someone to keep an eye on. He is one of very few people in the ANC right now who has the ethical grounding, the moral conviction, the reserves of energy, the policy nous, the intellectual depth and the bullheadedness needed to drive the philosophical and economic renewal the country needs if it is to save itself from destruction.
Who is Lamola? He is a keen cyclist. He is open, soft-spoken, dignified and displays none of the conspiracist paranoia often found among ANC leaders. He does not flash his wealth, if he has any. If you disagree with him, he engages you with the facts and does not hurl insults. He is a genuinely nice guy.
Unlike many ANC leaders who cannot seem to think independently and are married to the party line, even in private, those who follow policymaking in the ruling party know where Lamola stands on key economic issues, and they know he brings depth and conviction to those debates.
My favourite memory of Lamola goes back to March 19 2016 at the St George’s Hotel in Pretoria. The ANC national executive committee was holding one of its regular quarterly meetings. It was a tumultuous time. The deputy finance minister at the time, Mcebisi Jonas, had just revealed that the Gupta family and president Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane had offered him R600m if he agreed to act as their man when appointed minister of finance.
The country was outraged. Yet the ANC’s leaders were protecting Zuma and claiming there was a conspiracy against him. Lamola was one of only nine ANC members who turned up at St George’s and protested against Zuma’s continued corrupt tenure. He carried a placard saying, “Save The Soul of The ANC”. He told a reporter: “This is the last warning shot to the ANC. If they don’t fire or remove him [Zuma] this weekend, society must stand up and remove him.”
We know that Lamola is ready and willing to stand for the rule of law and against corruption
It was a lonely time for Lamola. His comrades attacked him viciously and defended Zuma, but he stuck to his principles. That’s leadership.
Lamola was clear at the time about what needed to be done to fix the country: “We [the ANC] cannot continue to flip-flop on economic policies, land expropriation and what is the national identity we want for ourselves.”
In January, when tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu attacked the constitution she swore to uphold and called judges by the disgusting racist slur “house n*****s”, Lamola led the charge in defence of the constitution.
“Referring to judicial officers by using crude racial tropes cannot pass off as a debate. Attacking the very institution that is to uphold the constitution goes against the grain of everything that we wanted to change from before 1994,” he said.
I want you to note how so many of the ANC’s leaders who are hogging the headlines today — Jacob Zuma, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Nomvula Mokonyane, Ace Magashule, Zweli Mkhize et al — did not once speak up for the constitution or the judiciary. They believe in the constitution only when they abuse it with their Stalingrad strategies to evade the law. In truth, they want to destroy the constitution.
We know that Lamola is ready and willing to stand for the rule of law and against corruption. Indeed, if one were to point to some success in the Ramaphosa administration, it is the rejuvenation of some of the institutions of accountability and the continuing arrests of some of the perpetrators of state capture.
What do we know about many of the other leadership contenders? They want to burn. If the likes of Lamola are trounced in December, and the likes of Sisulu rise, then be prepared. Winter is coming.
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