A member of the old United Democratic Front (UDF) senior leadership may emerge as a strong and even winning candidate in the succession struggle in the African National Congress (ANC), political analyst Frederik van Zyl Slabbert predicts.
This has been reported in the Helen Suzman Foundation publication, Focus, as reported by scribe Patrick Laurence.
Van Zyl Slabbert reasoned that two of the three components of the ANC leadership — the Robben Island prisoners and the exiled leadership corps — had provided the first two post-apartheid party and national presidents.
The former apartheid-era opposition leader reckoned the time was now “propitious” for a former member of the UDF to fill the top slots.
Laurence quotes Slabbert — leader of the Progressive Federal Party from 1979 to 1986 — as saying that: “I have a fascination with the old UDF high command and surmise that mid-next year someone will pop out of the woodwork as a potential candidate”, he says.
“[Former deputy president Jacob] Zuma will have to do serious work [to retain his present position as the leading candidate].”
Laurence said that if Slabbert was correct, there were three prime potential candidates from the former UDF: Trevor Manuel, Cyril Ramaphosa and Mosiuoa Lekota.
“They are, respectively, the minister of finance, a high profile businessman and former ANC secretary general and the minister of defence. Each of the three, however, has particular weaknesses as candidates for the presidency of the ANC and the nation,” he argued.
The presumption that the ANC and national president “should be an indigenous black African may unjustly count against Manuel”.
Ramaphosa may be prejudiced by perceptions that he is a “fat cat” who is too far removed from the grassroots struggle, despite being a man who once served as the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, Laurence argued.
Lekota may be handicapped by memories of his failure to declare his business interests to Parliament, as required by a Cabinet minister, despite the fact that he has long since been reprimanded and disciplined.
The ruling ANC elects its leader in December 2007. — I-Net Bridge