Power play: Oscar Mabuyane (right), the Eastern Cape’s provincial chairperson, is a strong supporter of the
ANC’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Photo: Lulama Zenzile
ANC Eastern Cape chairperson Oscar Mabuyane has hailed the efforts of his provincial executive committee (PEC) as the party prepares for its conference to elect leaders.
Mabuyane is expected to battle it out against his former ally and provincial treasurer, Babalo Madikizela, for another stint as provincial chair.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian, he said the leadership collective had managed to bring a fractured province together on his watch.
Mabuyane, a loyal lieutenant of ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, took the reins in 2017 in a contested conference in the last days of Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president. His election was heavily challenged by senior provincial leaders who called for an investigation into the process.
The national executive committee (NEC) then called on former KwaZulu-Natal premier Sbu Ndebele to head a panel to investigate the validity of his election. Although Ndebele came back with findings that the conference was illegitimate, the NEC rejected the recommendations, solidifying Mabuyane’s leadership.
During this time, the ANC in the province was divided between those who wanted Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to ascend to the presidency and Mabuyane’s backers, who were loyal to Ramaphosa.
Mabuyane said he had to get his hands dirty early in his tenure by removing parallel structures in branches, which were a source of the instability in the province.
“At some point in this province, we had a situation where you had parallel branches in every branch, which created a state of chaos and anarchy in the organisation, which sometimes led to a situation where if you go to a conference you have people trading off on numbers,” he said.
His allies said the parallel structures presented a problem for the province when it came to national conferences.
Chris Hani regional chair Wongama Gela said the disorder in branches allowed leaders with ambitions to reach the top six of the ANC to bulldoze their way into the province and divide it further.
“When he was elected as chair in 2017, one of his achievements is that the Eastern Cape is the only province that championed unity and renewal. In every NEC meeting, the Eastern Cape was the first to raise the programme of unity and renewal; even before the finalisation of guidelines, it implemented [the] step-aside [policy],” Gela said.
“It is one of the roles we are proud of the chair having implemented with the secretary [Lulama Ngcukayitobi].”
The Eastern Cape was also the province that took on Zuma and suspended secretary general Ace Magashule, calling for them to be removed from the party.
Mabuyane was the first provincial leader to call for Magashule to step aside after he was charged with fraud and corruption to the tune of hundreds of millions of rands in an asbestos roof project in the Free State.
The Eastern Cape provincial executive committee also called for Zuma to be suspended after he defied a constitutional court order that he appear before the state capture commission chaired by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
Mabuyane said this put a target on his back.
“We committed ourselves to the principle of renewal and we said it must start with us. Some of us had that thing that was unprecedented where your name is being thrown out there negatively. You voluntarily go to the integrity commission of the ANC and explain and give facts and details,” he told the M&G.
“I even went to the national one. Something that is not easily done. Because we are committed to renewal not on any convenience [but] because we believe the future of the country depends on renewal of the ANC that is free from all the factions.”
Mabuyane said some projects that had long been forgotten were returned to the government’s developmental agenda under his leadership.
“We are a leadership collective that was appreciated in our province across the sociopolitical spectrum … you could feel that the leadership is appreciated by sectors of society against all the challenges that we have,” he said.
“We tried to push hard to see to it that all catalytic projects begin to be realised. The Mzimvubu water project, the N2 highway … These long projects that have been there, your oceans economy, getting the master plan in place, cannabis. At some point I was called a dagga premier; when everyone was shy to speak about it, we spoke about this industry with passion. Now everyone wants to be associated with it across the country.”
But political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast believes Mabuyane failed to bring the ANC in the province together.
He said that although Mabuyane claimed to have been instrumental in developmental programmes undertaken by the national government, it was still unclear whether these projects had created jobs and helped reduce unemployment.
“His leadership has always been the brainchild of the dominant faction. That is why even now Ramaphosa supports his comeback. He has been under siege for all sorts of reasons. The public protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, made some serious findings against him. He has received a baptism of fire. No wonder his political opponents are still determined to dislodge him in the provincial conference,” said Breakfast.
“Things have been worse under him. I don’t think there has been progression, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the province. It could have been better if the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay had won back the municipality outright. Then you could say that when he ascended to power, the municipality was not under the ANC but now he has resumed power. But the ANC is still on the back foot.
“In fact, I would then say the margin of the ANC vote before he came to power and the way the ANC performed last year is telling,” Breakfast added.
But Mabuyane said that last November’s local government elections, where the Eastern Cape retained 34 out of 39 municipalities up for grabs, was a great achievement. “This doesn’t happen by a miracle. It’s because the leadership has been visible … It has been trying to tackle all the issues that have been raised about weaknesses of the province,” he said.
“Of course, we are swimming against the tide. There are serious weaknesses in the province that we can’t run away from. Developmental challenges and high levels of poverty, but I can tell you there is a political willingness to address and confront these problems because of the sense of stability we have created at the top.”
Gela said another highlight of the Mabuyane-led ANC leadership was the work of uniting the ruling party’s tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP).
“It happens only in this province where we had three or four alliance summits, where the alliance sits together, agrees on a programme, comes back and makes an assessment in terms of implementation and charts a way forward,” Gela said.
“It’s only here where you have Sanco [South African National Civic Organisation], SACP and Cosatu that do not speak parallel to the ANC. Something that you rarely find in other provinces. Those are some positives that have happened under his [Mabuyane’s] leadership.
“Before, MECs, premiers and ministers were unavailable but we see them now on a daily basis. They are among the communities that they lead and to us, it’s the work of the PEC that is led by Mabuyane,” Gela added.
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