There was nothing about the general mood in the dusty streets of Matlosana township near Klerksdorp in the North West province last Sunday that indicated that the deputy presiÂÂdent of South Africa’s ruling party and the president of its youth wing were in town.
The township, which, like the rest of South Africa, is facing a high rate of unemployment, crime and poverty, continued with life as normal, despite Jacob Zuma, a possible future president of the republic, visiting the district.
Flashy SUVs and luxury vehicles belonging to municipal and provincial government employees lined various streets, playing loud music. People were drinking liquor. The mood was festive. Nothing like what one would usually associate with a rare visit from an august personage.
Closer to the Matlosana sports grounds, where Zuma was a guest speaker, people were having picnics and braais. Meanwhile, Premier Edna Molewa had jetted off to Japan a few hours before the arrival of Zuma and his lot.
It was clear that Zuma’s charm offensive, to consolidate support for himself in the province ahead of the party’s make-or-break national conference next year, would backfire. It did, and it did so terribly.
Before the Sunday rally Matlosana was touted as a stronghold for Zuma backers, known as Mapogo. The backers in the province are led by disgruntled former mayors and councillors, who claim they were sidelined from ANC structures and provincial and local government by a President Thabo Mbeki-led faction, known as the Talibans and led by Molewa, after the March local elections.
Zuma and ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula went to the district for the grand finale of the league’s 62nd anniversary celebrations.
However, the rally, billed as an opportunity for Zuma to show that he also had support in the province, turned out to be a damp squib.
Those who attended were unmoved by Zuma’s address and chatted noisily throughout.
The Mail & Guardian understands that Zuma’s political show floundered after the youth league in the province — which is at loggerheads with its national structure as part of the tug-of-war succession tussle within the ANC — ”collaborated with the Mbeki faction to humiliate and embarrass Zuma”.
As a result of this well orchestrated plan to embarrass him, the ANC deputy president found himself addressing a rowdy crowd who showed little interest in his speech. They were merely there because kwaito group Mafikizolo would be performing.
Unmoved by Zuma’s charm and a seven-page speech, in which the former deputy president regurgitated the history of the ANC and its youth wing, the audience did not applaud. Neither did they request that he perform his trademark song, Umshini Wami, as is the norm when he visits other areas in the country.
Zuma had been advised by a faction disgruntled with Molewa’s distribution of state largesse and the national leadership of the youth league that he stood a chance of taking North West from Mbeki’s firm grip.
The provincial leadership, made up of Mbeki supporters, invited Mbeki ally and confidante Joel Netshitenzhe to deliver a political lecture to hundreds of local activists the day before Zuma’s arrival.
As the ANC deputy’s political circus left the province, having failed to capture the minds of the people, the Mbeki-aligned faction celebrated a psychological victory ahead of the president’s visit to the province next week.
Buoyed by the victory, the provincial executive committee in the same week called for the end of dual membership at national leadership level in the tripartite alliance in a bid to exclude Zuma left-wing backers in trade union federation Cosatu, the SACP and the South African National Civic Organisation.
The provincial committee proposal seeks to exclude the likes of SACP secretary general Blade Nzimande from participating in the ANC national executive committee, following an acrimonious tit-for-tat public spat between Mbeki and Nzimande at the last national committee meeting.