Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has finally thrown her weight behind President Thabo Mbeki, making up her mind at the last minute about which camp she will support in the upcoming ANC presidential elections.
Both the Mbeki and the Zuma camps had tried to persuade her to join their side during the past few weeks and included her on their top-six lists. The Mbeki camp offered her the position of deputy president, while the Zuma camp wanted her as national chairperson.
The electoral commission on Thursday finalised nominations and confirmed that Dlamini-Zuma accepted the nomination for deputy president and declined the nomination for chairperson.
The gap she left was filled by Âmultimillionaire businessman Tokyo Sexwale, whose hopes for a presidential nomination were dashed at the recent provincial conferences, where no province nominated him for the top job.