Frank Chikane’s Eight days in September … is the controlled-but-traumatised memoirs of a person who saw the pillars of his Union Buildings kingdom tumble down around him.[i] These are the personal – and in themselves faction-linked – observations of a key player in the events of September 2008, and in the decade preceding those events. Ironically, they come at a time when the most probable unintended consequences will be renewed empathy with the rise of Jacob Zuma.

This analysis focuses on three of Chikane’s arguments that have come to epitomise both the book and the African National Congress (ANC) response to it: the ‘coup d’état’ nature of Mbeki’s ousting, the Chikane argument that there was the ‘potential for destabilising the country’, and the ‘danger of what the ANC has become’ – and especially where the origins of organisational decay are situated.

Chikane’s account of the fall of the Mbeki fortress is marked by the denialism of the ‘root of the evil’ as substantially in the Mbeki era (although it started even earlier, and is thus one of the inherent contradictions in the liberation movement). It is equally characterised by the sensationalist (and distorted) depiction of the unceremonious coup-like ousting of the Prince as resembling a moment of ANC instability that destabilised (or could have destabilised) the country … had it not been for the Mbeki sacrifice of actually stepping down when the ANC demanded.

Contrary to the Chikane’s contention, the problems in the ANC (in as far as these were manifested in factional politics, in greed for occupation of position, etc.) were firmly anchored in the time of Mbeki. The problems were noted in the 2000 Port Elizabeth NGC meeting (and in the subsequent ‘Eye of the needle’ document) indicating that they had already existed when Mbeki took over the reins, and had had their genesis in the saintly Mandela period. They ripened, handsomely, in the course of Mbeki rule.

The Mbeki ‘crash’ was long in the making. It had many precursors, but was specifically precipitated by the Mbeki presidency. His (state) presidency strongly entrenched an inner circle, and in the process it made many enemies in the ANC (some for reasons of corruption, but others simply for not playing by the Mbeki rules). It was a presidency, as I argue my book The ANC and the regeneration of political power (Wits Press, November 2011) that made the fatal mistake of thinking that it was omnipotent and that the ‘state’ Presidency could prevail over the ‘party’ ANC. This protective cordonne in the Presidency, with Chikane as a key player, shielded and reassured Mbeki that all was fine and his control was secured. Many reports, also recounted in my book, suggest that it was only in Polokwane and right on the eve of the 2007 Polokwane vote that Mbeki realised how much he was not in control of the ‘balance of forces’.

Turning to 2008, Chikane and others around him (by all indications that can be gathered from his explanations of the book) seriously misread the pre- and post-Polokwane ‘new character of the ANC’. It was a deep-seated revolt of the ANC structures against leadership’s (attempted) appropriation of the right to continue in office and let government rule over the ANC. Mbeki fuelled the frenzy when he embarked on campaign of recalcitrant and go-slow compliance with ANC wishes. With the Presidency’s assistance, he played the game of technically complying with ANC wishes, yet doing so in own time, on own terms, and in minimalist fashion. Mbeki was not, as Chikane suggests, an innocent in this game. Mbeki tested the patience of his organisation. He pretended that it was business as usual when he was on borrowed time, negotiating a slippery slope.

Polokwane was the ANC’s taking back of the ANC from the state. Mbeki had thought that he was safely entrenched in the state and in command of the ANC, for example in positioning his cabinet in a controlled way to dominate ANC NEC meetings, rather than allowing a free flow of ideas and critiques. The revenge against this top-down fusion of party and state would become, in the subsequent period, far more of a bottom (ANC)-up fusion.

The Nicholson obiter of September 2008 was the final trigger, and here Chikane certainly gets it right. Legally contentious (and indeed later overturned) as it was, it served the political moment. Mbeki, by now in a tight political corner, stepped into the dismissal trap when he decided: ‘Appeal!’ when there was no space left in the context of a ‘mood that had turned foul’.

September 2008 saw the conflation of party and state – not a new phenomenon either, even if it was evolving – in the recall actions. Chikane mischievously conflates the ANC instead of parliament ousting Mbeki with a ‘coup d’état’ that threatened ‘stability’. He under-mentions the fact that whilst technically correct that it was the right of parliament to do the recall it was a fait’ accompli that parliament would confirm the ANC decision on Mbeki.

In his promotion of the book Chikane makes a ‘big thing’ of the instability that was so narrowly averted come the statesmanlike handover by Mbeki. His argument implies that the whole country could have descended into instability had his Prince Valiant not acted in the interest of country and citizen. The people of South Africa, however, did not expect anything else. In addition, government itself became modestly more stabilised and somewhat less paralysed, after a period of intense paralysis because of the disjuncture from 2005 onwards between party and state. Chikane remains to inform us whether the security forces had really had other plans. On the balance of evidence, this seems unlikely.

The ANC is a large organisation, with multiple talents and layers of aspiring leaders. The circle of those that were benefitting from the Mbeki system was too small and too modest in talent to make the large numbers of ANC-excluded feel they did not also deserve a turn to ‘drink at the trough’ (slogan used by the ascendant faction outside the Polokwane marquee). A crucial mistake that Mbeki made, and which Chikane does not explore, was to assume that he was the master of the ANC. He faltered because he thought he knew what was best, and he expected all to accept his word for his superiority. This is the star that Chikane follows in this journey of writing up his adventures as director-general in the Presidency. Mbeki was not, as Chikane suggests, pristine in serving South Africa and its people, and not himself. Mbeki came to serve his own ego, his own assumed superior intellect, and his own designer plan for South Africa. In a way, this was what was destabilising.

In spite of these critiques, the understanding of South African politics has been deepened by Eight days in September … It provides a valuable perspective on a key power broker in Mbeki’s South African presidency. It helps us understand why Mbeki did what he did.

It will, inevitably also play a role in the ANC’s Round Two, Mangaung, although probably not as Chikane had intended. It comes as a reminder of the reasons for the ascendancy of the ‘Zuma ANC’.

Susan Booysen is Professor in the Graduate School of Public & Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand and author of The African National Congress and the regeneration of political power.