The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) was the undisputed kingmaker.
”People did not believe us when we told them we were going to rewrite history at this conference,” ANCYL president Fikile Mbalula was quoted as saying by the Times newspaper this week.
Mbalula went further: ”It was war. To have Jacob Zuma elected as the president of the ANC in this conference was war. And we won.”
And it all began when ANCYL secretary general Sihle Zikalala walked to the podium at the opening of the conference. He proposed that the ANC’s electoral commission use a manual system rather than an electronic vote-counting one.
This set the tone for what was the most tense and contentious ANC conference in 58 years. But it also demonstrated the power the youth league now holds within the former liberation movement.
The league’s motion was adopted eventually by the conference. This was just the first battle the league won this week.
It managed to stymie suggestions by Thabo Mbeki supporters that the issue of gender parity be applied to the ANC’s top six positions. The league argued that such official positions did not constitute a ”structure” of the ANC. The conference again endorsed the ANCYL’s argument.
But perhaps the biggest victory was when the names of all the people first suggested by the youth league made it to the top six positions.