Africa-Press – South-Africa. In 2022, the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School opened its doors to six former liberation parties in southern Africa, to applause from both the ANC and the South African government.
The school would help those parties “to improve their governing capacity and will play an active role in promoting the development and revitalisation of their respective countries”, the ANC’s Bekizwe Nkosi told Parliament in March that year.
It would also ensure those liberation movements “will continue to play a role in the reconstruction and development of the African continent”, said International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor in response.
And that is exactly what it is teaching, according to a new report, by way of the Chinese model that keeps the state subservient to the party.
The school describes itself as an initiative of the six ruling parties: Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF, Namibia’s Swapo, Mozambique’s Frelimo, Angola’s MPLA, and the ANC.
But the pervasive Mandarin on signs and banners point to the big role played by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which funded the concept by way of its own Central Party School, had the campus built by a Chinese construction company, and supplied lecturers and material.
The school is, in fact, part of “China’s shadow empire”, say online publication Axios and Danish newspaper Politiken in an article published this week drawing on visits and interviews with alumni.
Lessons include how to fuse party and state, one attendee told the publications.
Students reportedly learn of the importance of establishing the ruling party as above both the government and the courts, and how to maintain internal party discipline and so ensure ideological purity.
The publications called what they found at the school “the strongest evidence yet that Beijing is exporting its model of governing in its push to challenge the Western-led world order”.
The Nyerere school has hosted two major conferences since its pandemic-era opening, and offers various events and short courses.
China has long denied that it is interested in exporting its political model, and did so again in response to that report, telling the publications that – although the CCP is the “central leading force of all endeavours and causes in China”, it supports African political parties in development paths suitable to their individual conditions.
The school declined to speak to the publications of the original report, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from News24.
The ANC told News24 that it had a tradition, more than 100 years old, of educating members and working with “social democratic parties and socialist parties in Europe, progressive parties in the Americas, fraternal parties in Asia and liberation movements and other new governing parties in the African continent”.
“It is an insult to the ANC, CCM, Swapo, Frelimo and the MPLA to suggest that we are mindless and thoughtless parties that are being indoctrinated.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said:
“We regard this accusation as a clear ideological attack by those who want us not learn from each other as parties and countries that have many development challenges, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
“We will continue to work with other parties, learning from one another for the benefit of the people of our sister countries,” Bhengu-Motsiri added.
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