There was much ululating as President Thabo Mbeki and former deputy president Jacob Zuma entered this week’s gathering of the African National Congress’s policy conference.
One was the overall leader of the country as well as the party while the other had fallen from political grace after being ”released” as the country’s deputy president by Mbeki before a joint sitting of Parliament.
Zuma remains as deputy president of the party but his arrival at the conference after announcing that he will not to be participating in party structures was a surprise.
He sat on the podium next to Mbeki. Later in the day — Thursday — it was announced that he was free to participate in party structures.
Mbeki rose to deliver a lengthy opening speech — of the National General Council which is held every five years to thrash out policy matters — and at the end of it, he received a polite clap. Not the singing and dancing which had preceded his arrival into the University of Pretoria sports hall.
ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa ”Terror” Lekota, the nation’s Minister of Defence, underscored the point — perhaps inadvertently — that the response to the president’s speech had not exactly been tumultuous by asking for a second round of applause.
There was another polite round of clapping from the membership of some 2 500 people who had gaily sang and chanted not so long before. Part of the crowd was heard shouting: ”Zuma is our president”.
Zuma has not had any intention of leaving high office. And just a few days before being axed as deputy president announced he would meet his Zambian counterpart again towards the end of the year to discuss matters of mutual concern.
He criss-crossed the country to ANC rallies in the run-up to his axing. He attended rallies in the aftermath as well.
It is perhaps no accident that the ANC organisational report produced by general secretary Kgalema Motlanthe noted that the biggest growth in party numbers was from KwaZulu Natal — which has overtaken the Eastern Cape as the political heartland of the ANC. It is in a province where Zuma hails and where he once played a key role in constructing a political settlement with the once predominant largely Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party led by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
There was no chance that a popularity poll was going to be taken at the policy conference. The choice of leaders is the task of the national conference scheduled for 2007 when the presidency, deputy president, national chairperson, national treasurer, general secretary and deputy general secretary and national treasurer come up for election.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that if Mbeki had faced Zuma for the party presidency this week, the man who did the axing would not have won the popular vote.
Mbeki personifies the contradictions in the ANC. It is he who has driven the change from popular leaders in provinces automatically becoming provincial premiers. In 1994 he who appeared at the top of the party’s provincial list for the provincial legislature was the provincial chairperson and premier candidate. Now a number of provinces have produced leaders who have in fact ousted the provincial premiers
as provincial party leaders — including in the Western Cape where Ebrahim Rasool was ousted by a National Assembly MP.
If it were not that everyone expects Mbeki not to stand for re- election as party president in 2007, the chances of him losing that post — while remaining as the nation’s president until his constitutional two-term ends in 2009 — would be high.
The chances too of his favoured candidate being elected — possibly the nation’s new Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka — would also be remote. While it is early days, she is likely to hedge her bets and run for the deputy presidency of the party, rather than the presidency.
Some respite for Mbeki lies in the fact that candidates for provincial chairperson races in Mpumalanga and Limpopo went his way in recent votes.
The emergence of KwaZulu Natal as the political pulse of the ANC now adds a new factor to the leadership race in two years time. Whoever wins the presidency is likely to be the nation’s leader too. That person — be he national chairperson Lekota or someone from what appears at present as the predominant Zuma camp — will have a strong chance of getting the nod if he or she carries that province.
Adding the Eastern Cape would probably win the day.
Mbeki may not quite be a lame-duck president. He has the power of office — both as the nation’s president and as party president — on his side in the meantime. But any candidate who appears to have his backing looks set to be a lot slower at the heir apparent’s starting blocks. – I-Net Bridge