ANC chiefs meet on Mbeki third term

The Eastern Cape African National Congress’s call for President Thabo Mbeki to retain the party’s presidency for a third term moved to the national stage this week when all ANC provincial secretaries gathered for a one-day meeting on Thursday in Bloemfontein to discuss the party’s presidential succession battle.

‘There’s one item on the agenda. A focus on the leadership succession [in the ANC] for December,” said a provincial secretary.

Another secretary said the proposal that Mbeki should stand for a third ANC term would be debated, but a collective resolution would only be taken once all the provincial executive committees had taken their own resolutions. This would happen over the next few weeks.

The third-term campaign is gathering momentum and is coming to be symbolised by his supporters holding up three fingers. The three-finger salute was widely in evidence in the huge crowd that gathered in King William’s Town at the weekend as Mbeki opened new ANC offices in the town.

But ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and his supporters continue to raise a defiant middle finger. At the recent ANC youth policy dialogue, delegates sang ‘Zuma, siyaya eLimpopo” (Zuma, we’re going to Limpopo) — a reference to the pro-Zuma campaign in that province.

And warnings have been sounded by senior ANC national executive committee (NEC) members of a potential conflict between government and the party if they are led by different people. Mbeki has pledged not to seek a third term as South Africa’s president.

Last weekend, ANC Eastern Cape chairperson Stone Sizani formally asked Mbeki to make himself available for re-election as party president when delegates vote at the ANC’s elective conference in December. Sizani approached Mbeki on Saturday at his homestead in Idutywa, where a traditional and religious ceremony was being performed.

A senior Eastern Cape provincial executive committee member told the Mail & Guardian that Sizani’s request to Mbeki marked the beginning of a formal process in which the province’s leadership would begin lobbying other provinces.

‘Until now, the lobbying has been informal. The approach the chair[person] made to the president last weekend marks the formal start of the process,” the source said. It is understood that informal discussions have taken place between the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Limpopo and North West.

The Eastern Cape passed a resolution at its congress last year urging Mbeki to restand for the party presidency.

The North West formally debated the proposal at its provincial working committee meeting last weekend. An ANC leader who attended the meeting said there was ‘overwhelming” support for an Mbeki third term and those who opposed it would need to provide ‘hard, convincing, comprehensive reasons for why not”.

In Gauteng, the discussion has not yet taken formal shape, but the provincial executive committee has decided on ‘the principles of the leader” they would back, according to a provincial leader.

These included a leader who was not a populist, but could still play a unifying role, had international credibility, could bridge generation gaps in the ANC and was deeply rooted in the party’s history.

The North West ANC leader said that the province believed Mbeki was one of a handful of ANC leaders who would maintain the party on its current growth path. In a sideswipe at Zuma, the source said: ‘At this point in our history, we cannot afford to have a populist who would turn the ANC into an amorphous organ pushing people in any direction — it would destroy the economy.”

Siphato Handi, Eastern Cape ANC provincial secretary and an Mbeki ally, said the main reason the provincial branch had called on Mbeki to serve a third term was to ensure stability in the ANC. Mbeki brought a ‘qualitative” strength to the party at a political and policy level that few other leaders could.

‘Looking for trouble’

But the third-term proposal appears set for serious debate in the NEC. The M&G spoke to four NEC members who all argued against it.

‘We would be looking for trouble,” said one. ‘We would have to put in place mechanisms to manage the power balance [between the ANC president and the state president] and in all likelihood, the state president would become an ANC puppet. It would be a tragedy for democracy.”

An NEC member close to Mbeki said the president should lead the ANC until his term ends in 2009 and then resign and allow the NEC to appoint a successor. Alternatively, the new deputy president elected at the ANC’s December conference would take over.

‘It’s difficult to envisage the state president returning to run the party. He would be ruling from the political grave and we would have a classic case of the ANC micro-managing the state.”

Iraj Abedian, economist and economic adviser to Mbeki, said a third ANC term for the president would have a negative impact on the economy if the ANC began ‘puling the strings from behind and causing policy uncertainty”.

An NEC member close to Zuma agreed, saying Mbeki was not a leader who would ‘take a back seat and wait to be briefed”.

Another NEC member said it was likely that Mbeki was playing a ‘shrewd political game”. He would remain ANC president until 2009 to avoid a ‘two centres of power syndrome”, and then resign and make space for a successor whom he had quietly groomed.

In a May Day speech, NEC member Mathews Phosa said sensitive subjects had to be debated in the open to prevent the ANC and South Africa’s democracy from self-destructing. For the past two years the party has maintained the pretence that the raging succession battle in the ANC does not exist.

‘We [need] to involve the nation in debates and dialogue. A nation which does not debate issues is a nation of zombies,” said Phosa. ‘We must refuse to be treated like zombies.”

Calling the shots

The following have emerged as the political heavyweights within the Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma camps.

The president’s men:

Born in Port Elizabeth, Stone Sizani, is a former United Democratic Front (UDF) activist who served five years on Robben Island. With a British degree in development studies, specialising in rural development, he is seen as an intellectual and a strategist.

Mluleki George is the national deputy minister of defence and an MP since 1994. A UDF founder, he worked for the SACP in the Eighties. He is chairperson of the troublesome Amathole region.

The deputy president’s men:

KwaZulu-Natal minister for economic development Zweli Mkhize is regarded as Zuma’s main confidant. Their friendship dates back to the Eighties when Mkhize was in exile in Swaziland, where Zuma commanded ANC intelligence units.

Mkhize is the most influential figure in the KwaZulu-Natal ANC, tipped to replace provincial chairperson S’bu Ndebele.

Also driving the JZ campaign is the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal secretary, Senzo Mchunu, who is chairperson of the provincial legislature’s education committee and the ANC’s spokesperson on education matters.

He is known to have pushed for the proposal that the province publicly announce its intention to support Zuma to replace Mbeki at its December national conference.

Mchunu is expected to manage footsoldiers who will fan out into other provinces to garner support for JZ.