ANC transformation committee chair Zweli Mkhize
In December 2017, Zweli Mkhize Zweli Mkhize collapsed his campaign for the ANC presidency shortly before nominations for the governing party’s top six positions opened and settled for a seat on the party’s national executive committee (NEC).
Mkhize, then the ANC treasurer general, had failed to get the endorsement of his home province KwaZulu-Natal — which had backed Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the presidency — or that of any of the party’s other structures.
Faced with the reality that his campaign had not gained traction and the so-called unity ticket had failed to sway supporters of the two main factions, Mkhize, who describes himself as a pragmatist, threw in the towel.
This time around Mkhize, despite having had to resign as health minister last August over the Digital Vibes tender scandal, is no longer a rank outsider going into the ANC national conference.
If anything, Mkhize is the most likely of the small throng of would-be ANC presidents to give incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa a run for his money, having secured the backing of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC).
Despite former president Jacob Zuma’s endorsement of Dlamini-Zuma, it is Mkhize, and Ramaphosa, who have got the nod from the bulk of the branches to date, with Dlamini-Zuma ahead of the rest of the pack which, at this point, includes David Mabuza and Lindiwe Sisulu.
Thus far, he has focused on behind-the-scenes lobbying at the regional and provincial conferences held in the run-up to the national conference in December and on mobilising support at branch level through addressing branch general meetings and other ANC activities.
This week, Mkhize geared up his campaign, hoping to draw support from branches in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga with a series of media interviews and an offensive against the Special Investigating Unit.
In an interview with Mail & Guardian at a La Lucia boutique hotel in Durban — ironically under curatorship by the Asset Forfeiture Unit until recently — Mkhize said apart from reliance on his 20-plus years of experience in both the ANC and the government, his observation of what he describes as the Ramaphosa faction’s ironfisted hold on the NEC is a sign of the president’s weakness.
“I think that wrong leadership, wrong guidance, actually entrenches factionalism and makes it to be a rigid block that looks like it cannot be removed, it cannot be destroyed. That is bad leadership.
“I also think some of the people are actually part of the factions and the cabal, because they’re actually running their own interests and the clear interests that they’re serving, and on that basis, if members of the national executive committee are focused on the interests of the majority of people, they can’t fight,” he told the M&G.
Mkhize conceded, however, as a member of the NEC, “I have to accept all the weaknesses and failures that could have happened. And you ask the question, how to solve them, I say, okay, in this case, I think it was going to change the leadership and, therefore, we orientate the party.”
He throws the suggestion of a marriage between him and the Ramaphosa faction — as in 2017 — to promote stability out of the window.
To Mkhize, this is his last crack at the presidency and he intends to see it through to the end.
“I don’t think it will make sense, especially because in the previous one, we intervened in a number of ways where I actually withdrew. We were trying to do things in a particular way. I think that solution worked that time. This time around, members of the ANC think I must stand for a position; I stand only on that position that they want to elect me for.”
Mkhize may have resigned from government last August but he still moves with a small entourage of minders who were present during this week’s interview.
No-nonsense, meticulously dressed and 45 minutes late, Mkhize is described by his aid as “an undertaker”, an accurate description for a man who is known for his intense focus on the task at hand and ability to keep a calm head when those around him are losing theirs.
He’s also a detail man and spends a few minutes directing this team in setting up the meeting area for the best camera angles — a reminder of his time as a would-be photographer during his medical student days.
Mkhize appears relaxed and comfortable and goes into a lengthy description of his tenure at the KwaZulu-Natal executive council, where he served as health MEC, finance MEC and premier.
To him, these were his glory years.
Mkhize styles his tenure in KwaZulu-Natal as an era of progress and growth for the province. He recounts his time as a premier as a success story where he piloted programmes such as the district development model and integrated different levels of government to deal with diseases such as HIV/Aids, malaria and cholera.
“So, as we deal with the other epidemics, such as Covid-19, [it] is on the back of all of that experience,” Mkhize said.
He added that balancing the relationship between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC was one of the gains he made while he was in the provincial government.
Mkhize points to consequence management as a highlight. During his time, mayors knew they faced recall if they were incompetent.
Vuyo Mkhize is quick to pull out a 2012 opinion piece by Sihle Zikalala that praised Mkhize as the most popular premier at the time, ahead of the Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille. Zikalala, then the ANC provincial secretary and undoubtedly loyal to Mkhize, quoted an Afrobarometer survey which rated Mkhize at 73%, with Zille scoring 61%.
However, the period was not without controversy. During his time as finance MEC, his wife May was awarded an R11.8-million loan by the Ithala Development Finance Corporation, which fell under his department. Mkhize has defended the loan, saying it was a bond which had been serviced.
While Ramaphosa’s campaign has taken ownership of the ANC’s newest buzzword “renewal”, Mkhize claims the branches are seeing things differently.
“They are defying a lot of slates that are being dictated to them … it says the branches are actually driving the renewal of the ANC.
“By the way, when I talk about the renewal, it does not have to go based on the agenda of those who stand on the podium and pontificate. It will go, ultimately, on the basis of those who are members of the ANC.”
When asked if he had an ideal running mate, he skirts around the question, offering the generic ANC position that the branches will decide.
It is clear, as things stand, acting secretary general and treasurer general Paul Mashatile will play kingmaker in December.
The KwaZulu-Natal PEC understands the value of an alliance with Mashatile, which is why they have pronounced him Mkhize’s running mate. Mashatile has not said who he will support in December.
“To sit here and say, ‘I will not serve with so-and-so and so-and-so,’ let’s not be too presumptuous, because the people who decide who lead them [are] the branches … In our history of ANC, we’ve been taught that you don’t need to be friends but, if you have been assigned to work together, you have a responsibility to respect those who have decided on your leadership,” Mkhize said.
He had decided to stand after being approached to do so by activists from a number of ANC branches.
“I’ve served the ANC, whether I’m in an executive position or not, because I’m serving the people and in serving the people, I’ll always do that, because that’s been my life. People came to me when I was not active in the executive and they said to me: ‘No, we think that you need to consider this position,’’’ he said.
Mkhize said he had pulled out of the race in 2017 and “left those who are part of it” because of his concern over “the hostility with which the two factions were driving the campaign”.
“I felt this was going to split the organisation right in the middle.”
He would not be drawn on whether or not the ANC should recall Ramaphosa, should the president fail to secure a second term.
“I don’t think I have answers for that. It’s politics. It tends to be problematic because you may not be able to predict anything that is going to happen in 24 hours.”
He expressed regret over the recall of Thabo Mbeki by the ANC after the 2009 conference at Polokwane, saying the party had suffered “trauma” since by creating a precedent which “may be very difficult to correct in the future”.
“In this case, I feel, you know, it wasn’t necessarily a fait accompli that President Mbeki would be recalled. It was a few months but I think the level of anger and emotions around it were so high that, you know, that’s how they ended up,” he said.
Mkhize said the application of the step-aside rule had caused the party serious issues as it had been manipulated along factional lines.
“‘It’s crazy. There are instances where we can see the manipulation of the criminal justice system would actually be used to pass the factional decisions of the ANC to the criminal justice system. You end up with an inconsistent application of what we thought was an effort to try and deal with the challenges in the party. So, it needs to be challenged, it needs to be reviewed,” he said.
Instead, the ANC needed to use its normal disciplinary processes to deal with corruption, he said.
“As far as I can see, a fictionalised leadership will protect its own and penalise the others.”
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