Mbeki, Zuma: The state of the race

With less than nine months to go before the ANC national conference, which will choose a new leadership, adversaries Jacob Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki are using very different strategies in their attempts to win support. Last weekend was a case in point.

Mbeki, who is also the party’s president, met with the Mpumalanga provincial leadership as part of his continuing attempts to woo party structures, while Zuma was in Limpopo, accompanied by his main backers, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the communist boss Blade Nzimande.

Mbeki is painstakingly working party structures while Zuma is building constituencies of influence, notably among the left and lately with the Afrikaans community, both of whom the president has alienated over the years. In addition, Zuma is working the religious communities.

Who’s winning? While Zuma’s work may grab the headlines, Mbeki’s strategy is more wily. December’s conference will be run by the delegates, so party work is of the essence. Winning over constituencies will become important in the run-up to 2009, when the next national election is due.

Mbeki was scheduled to continue his work inside ANC structures by addressing the ANC Women’s League’s national general council on Friday. The league is a known fortress of support for Mbeki.

In Polokwane last weekend, Buti Manamela, the national secretary of the Young Communist League, dubbed 2007 as ‘the longest year for the ANC”, referring to the succession battle in the ruling party. He hinted that Zuma’s campaign trail was already in full swing, saying: ‘We’re setting the ball rolling, warming the places and familiarising ourselves with the territory.”

At the University of Limpopo, where a two-day event was held to commemorate slain SACP member Chris Hani, the political fervour generated by students disproved the conventional wisdom that when it comes to politics, young people aren’t interested. The students chanted, danced and sang ‘Zuma, my president” throughout the commemoration.

Shortly after Zuma’s arrival for the Chris Hani memorial lecture on Saturday, Joyce Tsiba, a YCL national executive member, asked the crowd to sing the national anthem to mark the opening of the proceedings. But the students burst into Zuma’s trademark song, Khawulethe Umshini Wam — to the amusement of the ANC deputy president and other guests — until they were again asked to sing the national anthem.

In his speech, Zuma addressed key issues affecting the youth, including education and Aids — before reiterating the historical role Hani had played in the liberation struggle.

Following his address, the crowds demanded that he sing Umshini Wam. Zuma immediately grabbed the microphone and sang and danced to their applause.

Zuma is deploying a populist strategy deliberately to counter Mbeki’s image as aloof and cold. What he lacks in intellectual clout he makes up for in personal warmth, and he uses it as part of his strategic armoury.

Mbeki’s style and image as the intellectual president is catching up with him. A cold rationality on crime — instead of an empathetic understanding of national fear — has seen him experience a flood of new year criticism. One of the reasons the party’s commissioned report into the hoax emails saga has been stifled is because it does not pull punches about Mbeki’s style.

Meanwhile, while last Saturday’s rally belonged to Zuma, the following day’s rally at the Great Tiro hall belonged to Mbeki loyalist, Sello Moloto, the premier and provincial chairperson of the ANC. In an indirect reference to Zuma, Moloto warned the crowds against leaders ”who become populists and like cheers and clapping of hands”. He also said the ANC will never change, referring to Cosatu’s plan, aimed at ”reclaiming” the ANC.

”The ANC will remain rooted in the masses of the people. Those who want to change it must go to hell and look forward to it,” he said. By contrast with the loud cheers that greeted his arrival, Moloto’s ”no nonsense” address received only a smattering of applause.

Last year Moloto attacked Zuma, arguing that the ANC should not be held to ransom by Zuma’s private matters and accusing him of elevating his personal problems into national ones.

Despite Zuma being well received in the province, one Zuma supporter raised concerns about his campaign strategy. ”Almost all the students who filled the hall today won’t be here at the national congress in December. So what it is the point of campaigning among them?” the supporter asked.

Mbeki, however, has been consistent in mainly paying visits to ANC provincial executive committees in four provinces, while Zuma has been feted at gatherings of Cosatu and the SACP and sometimes the ANC Youth League.

The left’s plan to swell the ranks of the ANC rather than split from the tripartite alliance is based on its calculations that Zuma will be the party’s next president and will put in place more radical policies. Yet even within the SACP, and to a lesser extent, Cosatu, members are not happy that the party is so openly backing one candidate. There are also activists who believe in the go-it-alone option. This is not good news for Zuma who is counting on full support from the left to bolster his presidential ambitions.

Two strategies

Mbeki