ANC poster boy, Max du Preez writes…

The one thing I'm sure of ... Exactly how democratic is the post-Polokwane ANC?

It appears that the party views democracy as a system where citizens vote every five years and during the period between elections the party which had more than 50 percent of the vote can do as they like.

Through actions and statements by leaders, it also seems as if the ANC believes that, because of its long history of struggle, it has a divine right to rule.

It will rule "until Jesus returns", its leader says.

That is why so many in the ANC believe that what is in the ANC's interest must also be in the national interest.

The ANC is the "sole representative of the people", as it proclaimed itself while in exile.

I'm not talking about the views and utterances of the hotheads of the ANC Youth League or the Communist Youth. I'm talking about Jacob Zuma himself, about secretary general Gwede Mantashe, about Cosatu chief Zwelenzima Vavi and SACP leader Blade Nzimande.

I want to break a confidence and tell you about a late-night off-the-record telephone conversation I had some two years ago with the former chairman of the ANC and minister of defence, Terror Lekota.

I had criticised the ANC in the Western Cape in this column for trying to oust Helen Zille as mayor of Cape Town through all kinds of underhanded means. I questioned their understanding of democracy. Lekota phoned me at home.

He was a bit annoyed with me and said that "as an old comrade", I should have known better. He then gave me a lecture about the different political cultures in the ANC and expressed the hope that I would in future show more understanding of the inner workings of the liberation movement.

ANC leaders and cadres who spent their time in the ANC's military camps and in the underground have a very different view from those who came from the United Democratic Front tradition, Lekota said. The military men and women had to be secretive and didn't have a culture of mandates, accountability and transparency like those who struggled inside the country had.

I remember Lekota saying something like this: "Some of our guys find it very hard to adjust to this new environment of tolerance and openness. They're used to making decisions, announcing their decisions and waiting for underlings to obey. "We must be patient with them and help them adjust.

They don't have a sufficiently broad understanding of democracy yet." Lekota wasn't referring to any of the people I mentioned above, but he might as well have.

There's a strong whiff of Stalinism in the political approach of many of the top ANC leaders at the moment.

Many of them seem not to have a "sufficiently broad understanding of democracy".

Take Zuma himself. He has stood by when his lieutenants launched unprecedented and reckless attacks on the judiciary.

He has consistently refrained from repudiating leaders of the MK Veterans body who threatened countrywide violence if the criminal charges against him were not dropped. And last week he took aim at the very heart of our democracy and our constitution, the Constitutional Court.

I found it shocking and of deep concern. For the first time I'm thinking that there's a very real danger that the ANC could change the constitution to suit their own political agenda if they have a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

We should all be alarmed at the way both the Mbeki and Zuma versions of the ANC have unashamedly abused the organs of state to further their own aims.

Both factions have abused the National Intelligence Agency, the police, the Correctional Services and the National Prosecutions Authority, and that abuse is continuing.

All these abuses trickle down to the citizens. A week after the NPA buckled under the pressure and withdrew charges against Zuma, three other accused claimed that the charges against them were also politically inspired and wanted the charges to be withdrawn: suspended Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Cape Town gangster boss Quinton "Mr Big" Marinus who faces 108 charges of organised crime, and Estelle Aggujaro, a travel agent linked to the Travelgate scandal.

We should all be very suspicious of the reported ANC plans to change the parts of the constitution ruling the relationship between the three levels of government.

The DA may just be right that it is aimed at undermining those local governments under the control of opposition parties after the 2011 local elections.

I have not made up my mind who to vote for on April 22.

But I do know that I will be using my vote to help ensure that the ANC does not get a two-thirds majority.