ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s lobbyists have added North West speaker Thandi Modise to their list for the party’s top six positions in what appears to be a move to counter President Thabo Mbeki’s strategy on gender parity in the ANC’s succession battle.
Key Zuma strategist and ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula confirmed this week that Modise was a candidate on the Zuma camp’s list for party deputy general secretary.
The position was initially earmarked for National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, who has been shifted to the position of ANC chairperson.
The last-minute changes on the Zuma camp’s list came after Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma rejected the position offered to her by her former husband, Jacob, in favour of the deputy president position offered by the Mbekites.
It was expected that businessman Tokyo Sexwale, who this week endorsed Zuma as the next ANC president, would get support from the Zuma camp for the position of party chairperson. But this would have meant that Mbete would have been the only woman candidate on Zuma’s top list.
The 50-50 representation of women in the ANC, recommended by the party’s policy conference in June, is expected to be endorsed as policy at the elective conference.
While the list of candidates drawn up by both camps for the party’s national executive committee does not reflect 50-50 representation, it shows a substantial increase in the number of women represented.
However, Mbeki’s list for the top six positions does reflect a 50-50 representation with three men and three women. Zuma’s list names four men and two women.
While Thabo Mbeki has championed the empowerment of women throughout his tenure as president, Zuma, who was acquitted on rape charges, has been portrayed by some in the Mbeki camp as a threat to gender equality.
Mbalula said Modise’s inclusion on the Zuma list for the top six positions was a response to Dlamini-Zuma’s rejection of the chairperson position and not a counter strategy on gender parity.
‘We regard the question of women emancipation as critical for the consolidation of gender parity in the ANC,†said Mbalula.
He said the fact that the Zuma list had only two women in the top six did not mean Zuma and his supporters were against 50-50 representation.
‘We have always understood gender parity to be from one to 66 [the total number of the ANC’s national executive committee], not about officials. The national office bearers are not a structure, but the NEC is,†said Mbalula.
He said Mbete and Modise’s names would be raised from the floor at the conference. Mbete would be up against head of the presidential policy unit Joel Netshitenzhe, while Modise would compete with Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza.