To 2024? ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Shifting alliances in the ANC — along with a frantic year of bruising regional and provincial leadership battles — will determine whether Cyril Ramaphosa’s anticipated bid for a second term as party president will succeed at its elective national conference in December.
The conference will settle whether Ramaphosa continues with his unity and renewal agenda in the governing party and lead it into the 2024 national elections, where it faces perhaps its toughest electoral test since 1994 on the back of massive losses in last year’s local government vote.
While some of Ramaphosa’s key allies in the provinces have suffered setbacks at regional conferences held in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape late last year, the fear of losing the next general election may see leaders from the radical economic transformation (RET) faction of the ANC back him for a second term in office come December.
A number of players in the ANC succession race — from both Ramaphosa’s faction and the RET grouping — may be ineligible for election by the time the conference sits, as a result of prosecutions stemming from the Zondo commission report.
The party will be forced to play catch-up in its programme of provincial and regional conferences, all of which have to be concluded ahead of both the policy conference, which could be held in the second half of the year, and the December conference.
Their outcomes are central to what happens at the ANC’s national conference as the leaders elected will make up the body of voting delegates who will choose the party’s national leadership in December.
Only one province, the Northern Cape, has held its provincial conference thus far. Four provinces — Mpumalanga, North West, the Western Cape and Free State — are operating with interim provincial committees, some of which were installed in 2018, after their provincial executive committees (PECs) either finished their term or were dissolved by the national leadership.
Both the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal are expected to push ahead with their provincial conferences once the regions have wrapped up theirs, while the national executive committee (NEC) has given all its structures until March to complete the conference processes.
However, this deadline is likely to be extended to May as the process was delayed in most parts of the country because of campaigning for the local government elections.
In KwaZulu-Natal, six of the 11 regions have thus far elected regional executive committees (RECs), several of them supportive of the RET faction, which has continued to gain ground since its initial setbacks in 2018.
The most important, eThekwini, was forced to postpone its conference last month because not enough of its 111 branches had held their general meetings for the elective meeting to go ahead.
Former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede has been nominated by the bulk of the RET-aligned branches as their candidate for chairperson, and is expected to stand at the conference, the date for which will be set after the ANC’s 8 January birthday celebrations in Polokwane at the weekend.
Gumede will go up against Thabani Nyawose, the eThekwini speaker and the frontrunner for the Ramaphosa faction in Durban, for the chairperson’s position, despite recent speculation that former president Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane will become the RET candidate for the post.
One of Gumede’s lobbyists said this week that she would remain their candidate and that speculation around the younger Zuma was “just talk”.
Zuma was only elected as an ANC ward 11 branch chairperson in December and the party’s constitution states that a potential candidate has to have been a member for five years and a branch leader for two before being eligible to stand for the REC.
The provincial conference, which is likely to be held in May, will see another of Ramaphosa’s current allies, chairpersonSihle Zikalala, face a serious challenge from the RET faction.
While Zikalala had led the province in support of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the RET faction at Nasrec in 2017, he and provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli led a “unity” slate backing Ramaphosa at the 2018 provincial conference.
The outcome shifted the balance of power in the PEC in Ramaphosa’s favour, but left key figures from the RET faction inside the provincial leadership, where they have staged a fightback since.
Zikalala has been unable to stamp his authority on the ANC in the province — in part because he lacks allies across the regions, where the RET grouping has dug in and has made inroads at the regional conferences being held before the national conference.
One PEC member, who is an ally of Zikalala, said that the “ground is against” the current chairperson, who may not survive.
New allies for Ramaphosa?
The regional conferences held late last year saw Ramaphosa’s allies losing ground in the provinces, but insiders say that those ideologically opposed to him are still wrestling with whether he should be supported for a second term as party leader.
Ramaphosa’s traditional allies in two of the biggest provinces in the ANC — Limpopo and the Eastern Cape — have lost regional conferences, the latest being the Peter Mokaba region in Limpopo.
ANC regional leaders allied with suspended provincial treasurer Danny Msiza last year claimed the Vhembe and Sekhukhune subregions in Limpopo, although the pro-Ramaphosa faction won the biggest region, Norman Mashabane, earlier in 2021.
Msiza — seen as an ally of suspended secretary general Ace Magashule — is set to be a leading figure when the ANC goes to its national elective conference in 2022.
Msiza is believed to have control of the Limpopo PEC and this was evident when the province sought its own legal guidance on the party’s step-aside resolution, which compels those facing criminal charges to step down from their posts.
Limpopo secretary Soviet Lekganyane was unable to enforce the rule under his own steam to remove Msiza from the party leadership, and had to call in help from ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte to do so.
However, one party leader aligned to Msiza said the results did not necessarily signify that he would be out in the cold next year.
“There is nothing cast in stone; this is politics. We need to weigh the options. Some of us are of the view that Ramaphosa should get another term and the bigger debate should be around who will deputise him. It’s too early to say if he will be contested,” the party leader said.
The sentiment is shared by those in Eastern Cape treasurer Babalo Madikizela’s faction, which has also gained ground.
Some in his corner have indicated previously to the Mail & Guardian that the bruising losses suffered by provincial chairperson and Ramaphosa ally Oscar Mabuyane at regional conferences might not necessarily affect Ramaphosa.
Mabuyane lost some key regions to the Madikizela faction in the province, although he managed to retain OR Tambo, the ANC’s second-biggest region nationally.
The Zondo factor
The legal fallout from the Zondo report, the first tranche of which was handed to Ramaphosa on Tuesday, is likely to have an impact on the ANC succession in December.
Party leaders charged as a result of the commission’s report are likely to be instructed to step aside from party and government posts, as has been the case since the guidelines for implementing the resolution adopted at its 2017 national conference were developed by the NEC.
Individual leaders affected are likely to be left to bring review applications or other legal challenges to the commission’s findings and recommendations regarding their conduct in their personal capacity.
Figures in both camps were implicated in witness testimony during the commission, which sat from August 2018, and may face criminal charges once prosecutions begin in earnest.
Key Ramaphosa allies Zizi Kodwa and Gwede Mantashe are among those who may have a case to answer over payments-in-kind they received from corruption-charged tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi and Bosasa, respectively.
Magashule may also face further legal battles as a result of evidence led before the Zondo commission, as could members of the NEC, including Malusi Gigaba and Mosebenzi Zwane.
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