‘My own man’: Phumulo Masualle is making a play for the ANC secretary general.
ANC secretary general contender and former Eastern Cape premier Phumulo Masualle claims there is a growing realisation that the provincial executive committee (PEC) led by Oscar Mabuyane needs to adjust its leadership contest position. Masualle was rebuffed by the PEC when it announced its preferred candidates for the ANC national elective conference in December.
He was reacting to a recent statement by the PEC which endorsed President Cyril Ramaphosa for a second term, Mabuyane as his deputy and national chair Gwede Mantashe to retain his position.
The provincial committee, which is dominated by the Mabuyane faction, snubbed Masualle, who similarly encountered it as a stumbling block in 2017 when he unsuccessfully ran for another term as provincial chairperson in a riotous conference dubbed the “festival of chairs”.
However, Masualle, who is now deputy minister of public enterprises and a member of the ruling party’s national executive committee, said he was comforted by the groundswell of support elsewhere for his bid for the position, having been endorsed by the PEC in KwaZulu-Natal and having pockets of support in Gauteng and Limpopo.
He will be go head to head with former KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli for the national position.
Reflecting on the ANC branch general meetings to nominate officials, Masualle said the Eastern Cape branches had expressed a view that differed from the Mabuyane-led PEC.
“The province is just going through a period in which it will soon rediscover itself, in the sense of what is best, and what is good that needs to be done.
“To have differed in a conference does not make you members of different organisations. You don’t stay parked in one period of time,” he told the Mail & Guardian in an interview ahead of December’s national elective conference.
“I think the nominations perhaps will indicate the sentiment, even with the attempt to try and influence the sentiment of the province.”
Masualle was considered a loyal ally of former president Jacob Zuma and led a faction in the Eastern Cape which supported Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in her bid for the ANC president post in 2017. While many now place him in a faction aligned to Zweli Mkhize, Masualle said he did not consider himself as belonging to any one ANC leader.
“I really exercise my own mind to what I see, take a view and when I’ve taken that view,
I really go for it and, of course, in the organisation, there is nothing you can do alone. You’ve got to find other people with whom that idea has a chance to become the idea for everybody,” he said.
Commenting on the current weak state of the ANC, he said part of the problem was that the ruling party had correctly diagnosed its challenges but had failed to put in place practical measures and time frames to implement solutions. This was also the case at the last conference.
“There is no effort to actually give concrete expression as to how this idea we have identified [will be reflected] in the activities we do and how we are going to really monitor the adherence to the achievement of this which has been identified,” he said. “So, over these many years, I’m trying to draw you a sense
that the decay has been getting into the organisation.”
The step-aside rule forms part of ANC’s strategy to renew itself but Masualle said he believed it was not the right tool for this purpose.
“You have to work to change the way things are happening in the organisation and then accompany that with discipline … The unfortunate thing with the step-aside [rule is that] it came way after … the last conference and it was as though it was meant to settle scores. I don’t think we’ve managed to remove that perception and stigma … because
at the implementation of it, it tended to bring that,” he said.
Masualle said a new, performance-driven culture must take shape in the party, arguing that part of the problem was the ANC was no longer the centre of power, with its power having been usurped by the government.
“It’s common knowledge that a lot of decisions and actions are taking place outside of the ANC,” he said.
Some ANC leaders have suggested increasing the number of party leaders to allow for two deputy secretaryies general (DSGs), with one monitoring performance and policy, but Masualle said this was not a solution to the party’s administrative challenges.
“Creating the ANC’s capacity to have oversight mechanisms over those who are in deployment at various levels, I think for me, there is a case for that.
“But it does not become a solution within the culture that we have … In the context of what we have now, two DSGs will still not work,” he told the M&G.
For the ANC to better hold its government deployees accountable, he suggested that regional and provincial chairs should cease taking mayoral and premier positions.
“I think, right now, we have just collapsed things. It has really led to a situation where there is no sense of giving the respect that the ANC deserves,” Masualle added.
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