Polokwane 2007 was the opening of the ANC's Pandora's box. In the run-up to Man - gaung the ANC struggled to get the lid back on. Polokwane unleashed a wave of energy that regenerated organisational fervour and power. It confirmed in ANC ranks that mobilisation against incumbents and around internal issues works. The run-up to Mangaung 2012 brought replays of tried-and-tested strategies. The ANC has never been a stranger to fierce internal contests. Yet, Polokwane bestowed unequalled and enduring factionalism (although the specific factions changed), free-for-alls in mobilisation to secure enclaves of power in the party and in the state, and rejection of the idea of movement elders being supreme in wisdom and authority (yet with hierarchical ascendancy as a primary driving force). Albeit suppressed by the ANC's leadership in the 2007-11 period, and lived out in policy codes, proxy alliances and leaked plots in the subsequent between-elective-conference-period, mobilisation for power and king-making were incessant.

This book's full dissection of the political brutality of the ANC's 52nd national elective conference is not just due to the drama of the time. It was a cathartic event for the ANC, changing the movement permanently. These realities were, again, lived out in the ANC preparing itself for its 53rd conference in Mangaung. The ban on public campaigning for Mangaung tempered some mobilisation. The ANC incumbents were at pains to emphasise that ‘premature’ campaigning would be as disruptive of state governance as it had been in 2007-09. For much of the preparation and mobilisation, however, Mangaung replayed Polokwane.

The ANC-Polokwane events that paralysed so much of state operations for an extended period thus help us understand both the past and the future of the ANC. Fusion between state and party meant that the state was and remained an arena for ANC contests. The events of Polokwane frequently distracted the ANC. They diluted, although they did not negate, the focus on state governance. These effects lived on.

This chapter takes a broad view of the ‘Polokwane war’. The trends of the period from mobilisation for Polokwane to Election 2009 take centre stage, with a view to extracting understandings of how the contests of the time impacted on movement, immediately and continuously.