A devastating strike and looming policy conference are finally prodding the shadowy contest for the leadership of South Africa’s governing party into the open, even if no candidate wants to admit it.
African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma, questioned yet again about whether he was a candidate to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, this week insisted: ”In the ANC, we do not run.”
Zuma’s grinning assertion, however, might have sounded more convincing if it was delivered elsewhere than in front of a packed room of journalists, before embarking on a round of interviews with international television networks.
And when Tokyo Sexwale, the charismatic former premier of Gauteng province, insisted earlier this month that the candidates for December’s election had not yet been identified, it escaped the attention of few that he was delivering a speech entitled ”Public conversations on leadership with Tokyo”.
The next ANC president will be formally elected in December at a party conference, with the winner finding him or herself in pole position to take over as head of state when Mbeki completes his second and final term in 2009.
But leadership hopefuls know the contest is won or lost long before, and must now start pushing their message in the build-up to a policy conference at the end of the month where some serious networking can be expected.
According to the Cape Town-based analyst Zwelethu Jolobe, the next few weeks will be key to finding out who will most likely become only South Africa’s third president since the birth of multiracial democracy in 1994.
”It’s all opened up the race up much more and you might now find one or two more candidates coming into the race,” he said. ”The policy conference will give us a lot of clarity.”
Zuma’s quest for the top post, which has survived a trial for rape and allegations of graft, has been given a new boost by the most serious bout of worker unrest since the end of apartheid over the past two weeks.
No fan of Mbeki after being sacked as deputy head of state two years ago, Zuma has been positioning himself as a champion of the poor and his name has been chanted at a number of workers’ rallies.
He used three high-profile appearances last week to bemoan what he described as a ”widening gap between the rich and poor” and to express his belief that the strike could and should have been avoided.
Jolobe said it is ”not a coincidence” that Zuma has been raising his profile at a time when Mbeki’s government is at odds with the unions. ”Zuma has been able to position himself in a way so that he will be much more sympathetic to the trade unions and those who have been excluded from the Mbeki decision-making regime,” he said.
If Zuma is the choice of the left, the millionaire Sexwale has emerged as the champion of business leaders who have thrived under Mbeki’s tenure after mapping out his ”dream of creating wealth for all”.
Sexwale has already admitted he has been lobbied to stand, coming close to breaking the golden rule of not declaring one’s candidacy. According to Aubrey Matshiqi, Sexwale is playing a bold game by ”playing his cards much more openly” than other hopefuls.
He agreed other candidates could soon be smoked out by the policy conference, including the likes of former ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was hailed by Mbeki as ”a true leader” last week.
Matshiqi said the apparent endorsement of Mlambo-Ngcuka could even be a ploy by Mbeki to build up support among women while he mulls standing again for the party leader, even if he is forbidden from a third term as head of state.
But with even Mbeki yet to come clean on his plans, many observers say the ANC needs to end its instinct of dealing with matters behind closed doors. — Sapa-AFP