South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) is experiencing a ‘Kanu moment’ – a reference to a period in Kenya’s political and democratic history that was marked with political antecedents that pushed the independence party out of power and favour with the electorate on the back of undelivered economic and social equity promises.

At present, Kanu in Kenyan politics and electoral democracy is pariah and there are fears in southern Africa that independence parties in the subregion are hurtling towards self-destruction as did Kanu (Kenya African Nation Union) in Kenya.

The concern has emerged in South Africa as ANC filed a series of petitions in court and the electoral commission seeking to bar former President Jacob Zuma from registering Umkhonto Wesizwe as a political party and running for a parliamentary seat citing a slew of undetermined corruption cases pending in court in the lead up to May 29 polls.

The ANC petitions have been quashed by the courts and the elections body, save Zuma’s quest to run for an elective office. He was disqualified serving a jail term for contempt of court.

ANC’s tactics are a familiar stock-in-trade in Kenya, where Kanu resorted to intimidation, trumped up criminal charges against divergent voices in the party, detention without trial and assassination to hold on to power. Human rights groups reported in March that at 15 political activists have assassinated in the past year in South Africa, although they did not directly implicate ANC.

The unstinted push by ANC’s to clip Zuma’s wings and Economic Freedom Party leader Julus Malema – a gadfly that scares ANC stalwarts, has echoes in Kenya in the political history between 1963 and 2002 when the ruling party’s influence flipped from a mass movement to a pariah before ceding its majority in parliament. Today, Kanu’s voice in parliament is no more than a whimper and it could get worse, according former Secretary-General Nick Salat.

The comparison between ANC and Kanu was recently made by a Zimbabwean trade minister, who on a visit to Johannesburg warned President Cyril Ramaphosa that ANC risked being relegated to peripheries “like Kanu in Kenya” if it continued being intolerant and impervious to the economic, social and rights plight of the hoi polloi.

When Tell Media caught up with Salat to shed light on such unedifying comparisons. He summed it up as “an abuse of trust by Kanu” that is being replicated all over Africa. According to Salat, Kanu has become a “case study in Africa for betraying the wretched of the earth.”

“Kanu had every chance to compete equally with the new formations because it was well structured in terms of its infrastructure as a party was comparable to none. In terms of its infrastructure…it had last mile delivery in terms of its infrastructure. If you went to any corner of this country you won’t fail to get members who identify with Kanu. The only setback is Kanu never changed with the times – if you are not changing with the times by allowing people to lead, then don’t blame rival political parties for your failures,” explains Salat.

Thirty years since it came to power, ANC faces political, economic and social challenges like the ones Kanu grappled with at the same age after independence. It was then not uncommon in Kenya to hear Kanu being described after 30 years “as going through a middle-life crisis.” This was in reference to its unproductivity and unresponsiveness to changing times to match the political trends in the world.

ANC faces the same crisis in Sout Africa. Hospitals and other social amenities are in disarray. President Ramaphosa, a businessman faces growing apathy that opinion polls predict will eat into the parties strength in the legislature to less than 50 per cent. When Kanu lost favour with electorate in 1997, it was forced into a coalition with Raila Odinga’s National Development Party to push its agenda in the national assembly. If opinion polls are to be trusted, the ANC is primed to enter a political alliance with white minority-led Democratic Alliance (DA), to the chagrin of Black freedom fighters.

Latest data gleaned from South African labour movement websites and World Bank show that this year the “Rainbow Nation” “has deep socio-economic problems, none more jarring than the widespread and severe poverty that still overwhelmingly affects the Black majority. The official unemployment rate is 32 per cent, the highest in the world, while it’s more than 60 per cent for young people aged 15-24.”

Asked for comment on the disdain for Kanu and other independence parties in Africa, former Kanu Nominated Member of Parliament, Prof Ruth Oniang’o, ascribed the phenomenon to greed and unremitting thirst for power in Kenya that is being replicated elsewhere. Prof Oniang’o, however, points out that ANC had the advantage of learning from the bad manners of Kanu in Kenya to railroad South Africa to prosperity.

“Politics stays the same…but the kind of human beings we have today are behaving differently, influenced by a changing environment (globalisation). Also people are coming out in their true colours. Short memory and short attention span (is of concern for political stability and economic growth in Africa). So-called leaders have low tolerance level, easily bored, no trust. It is all about Me, Me, Me… individualistic and self-centredness. Kanu was [like] a company, which did not adjust with the times. Remember at one time we all saw it and accepted it as Mama na Baba,” recalls the don, a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology in Nairobi.

After the departure of Thabo Mbeki – founding president Nelson Mandela successor – South Africa has been rocked by high-level graft with former President Jacob Zuma and incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa accused of complicity. Zuma is accused of being a beneficiary of arms trafficking, an allegation that recently sucked in former speaker of parliament Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. Ramaphosa is smarting from the discovery $500,000 in a coach in his living room, that has not been uncounted for so far.

The May 29 presidential election is ANC’s toughest litmus test of its standing among the Black electorate since sweeping to power in 1994, according to a raft of opinion polls in the countdown to the elections. The party promised equal rights to all South Africans. Thirty years on, the “rainbow nation” Mandela envisaged is a mirage according to the opinion polls that point to a disenchantment with ANC as its popularity and emotional attachment to liberation party has waned over the past 20 years.

Two years before the polls, President Ramaphosa faced searing criticism over frequent power blackouts that have seriously eroded industrial production and job creation capacity. Since March this year, major South African cities – namely Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town – have been experiencing acute water shortages, with reports of explosion of cholera and other waterborne diseases adding to the socioeconomic woes of a country that was once the envy of the continent.

According to Salat, the situation ANC finds itself in has echoes in Kenya. He observes, “Political parties outside Kenya look at Kanu as a party that never really wanted to sustain its vibrancy. To sustain vibrancy meant to bring on-board people who have come of age in that particular period. By coming of age I mean inclusivity. You don’t retain the old tag then purport to demonise Kanu when you are repeating the same mistakes. The very same people who want to demonise Kanu today, were the same people who were in Kanu, but Kanu was in an awkward position then.”

• A Tell report