What Tokyo said to Zuma

Businessman Tokyo Sexwale has declined to respond to information that he met with ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma to ask him for his assistance in elbowing out Cyril Ramaphosa from the party’s presidential race.

Sources in Jacob Zuma’s camp say Sexwale not only met Zuma at least three times last year to discuss his bid for the party leadership — he also asked for Zuma’s help in fighting off tycoon Ramaphosa.

The sources revealed that the group acting for Sexwale visited former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni while the latter was in jail to lobby him to support the Sexwale’s bid.

Since last week the Mail & Guardian has offered Sexwale an opportunity to respond to the information. Instead on Thursday, his office sent a comment questioning the basis for the story. ‘We note your interest, which is in the form of questions. In response, we have our own questions:

• Why does a publication of the status of the Mail & Guardian give credence to faceless people who peddle such obvious misinformation about relationships and meetings?
• Why don’t your ‘sources” stand up in public to make these suggestions and ask these questions in the open, so that they and their motives can be known?” asked Chris Vick, spokesperson for Sexwale.

Zuma, who has not said whether he will oppose Sexwale’s campaign, was reportedly angered by media reports of meetings between himself and the businessman.

The reports sparked concern in the Zuma stable, as his supporters do not want the ANC deputy president to withdraw from the race or anoint anyone else as a compromise candidate.

A source in the Zuma camp confirmed that Zuma met Sexwale twice in May — once immediately after his acquittal on rape charges — and in September. The meetings had been ‘under false pretences”, in that Sexwale had not indicated beforehand that his leadership challenge would be discussed.

In one of the May meetings, Sexwale is said to have told Zuma he had gathered that Ramaphosa was preparing to return to politics and would contest for the ANC presidency.

A source close to the process of coordinating the Sexwale/Zuma meetings said: ‘He [Sexwale] said he was preparing to challenge Ramaphosa and was hoping Zuma would support him.”

The source said the meeting had turned ugly and ‘could have marked the ultimate breakdown in relations between Zuma and Sexwale”.

‘This relationship he [Sexwale] claims to have with Zuma broke down when he claimed he did not want Ramaphosa to be the president”.

The source said Zuma was furious that Sexwale had approached him under the pretext of being the chairperson of LoveLife, and only to speak about his interest in leading the ANC.

‘These meetings were under a false pretext. Tokyo turned them political when he tried to get Zuma to support his bid for presidency,” said the source.

However, nothing was said at the meetings about Sexwale becoming a compromise candidate if Zuma puled out of the race.

Other sources in the Zuma camp corroborated this account, and added that Zuma suspected Sexwale of being the source of the media reports on their meetings.

‘Some of the things out there in the media are only known by Tokyo, Zuma and very few other people,” said one Zuma strategist. If Sexwale planted the story, it was ‘hypocritical” of him to later distance himself from it.

Another source pointed out that although Sexwale, Ramaphosa and former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa had been fingered by former safety and security minister Steve Tshwete as being behind a plot to topple Mbeki, ‘they do not share a history of being a homogeneous bloc in the ANC”.

Sexwale had not supported Ramaphosa when the latter challenged Mbeki for the position of ANC deputy president in 1994. Instead, he and Phosa entered the race to succeed Nelson Mandela as president.

At his September meeting with Zuma, Sexwale is said to have offered to broker peace between the ANC deputy president and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The offer came after Tutu had criticised Zuma in the Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture in Cape Town and advised him to drop out of the presidential race.

A strategist in the Zuma camp said Zuma had refused to be part of the proposed peace meeting, arguing that ‘the archbishop had Zuma’s phone number; he could just phone him”.

‘Why should Tokyo be the one who brokers peace between Zuma and Tutu?” the strategist asked.

Sexwale’s proposed intervention in the Zuma-Tutu spat appears to be part of a broader strategy to present himself as a peacemaker and reconciler, particularly in the ANC’s internal battles.

Also in September, he offered to transport French soccer team captain Zinedine Zidane and Italian defender Marco Materazzi to South Africa with the hope of reconciling the two after the head-butting incident during the world cup final in Germany last year.

The questions the M&G asked Tokyo

• Do you consider yourself an ANC presidential candidate?
• Are you running a campaign with this objective in mind?
• Are there people running a campaign for you to be president, with or without your direct involvement?
• Have you been approached to stand as ANC president? Did you agree to such a request? Alternatively, what was your response to such an approach?
• If you are not campaigning at the moment, is there possibility you could join the race at your own convenience later this year?
• Did you meet with Jabob Zuma after he was acquitted from his rape charge? What was the purpose of the meeting?
• We understand you offered that yourself and Zuma should cooperate politically and not oppose each other in the ANC leadership race.
• Specifically, did you ask that the two of you cooperate in opposition to defeat Cyril Ramaphosa? Is this true? If not what is the actual political discussion that took place between the two of you?
• There is an allegation that you had approached Zuma in your capacity as LoveLife chairperson to talk about HIV/AIDS education matters but then turned the discussion to a political one
• Did you meet Zuma in September where you offered to broker peace between Zuma and Tutu?
• Did anyone representing your interest visit Tony Yengeni in prison and ask him to lobby for your presidential ambitions in the Western Cape?