Newly elected ANC Eastern Cape chairperson Phumulo Masualle will not be “blackmailed” by those accusing him of planning a purge when he changes the province’s government, a key Masualle adviser said this week.
Government leaders, including Noxolo Kiviet, the premier, and provincial ministers, are deeply insecure about their jobs after Masualle’s victory at the province’s elective conference last weekend.
South African Communist Party (SACP) provincial secretary Xola Nqatha said Masualle — the SACP national treasurer — is not seeking revenge, but that the cabinet will be reshuffled to ensure key positions are aligned with the party leadership.
“There are no guarantees — we have to face facts and make changes as needed,” said Nqatha, a member of the provincial legislature and one of the key strategists behind Masualle’s campaign.
Nqatha said that after the ANC’s election victory certain strategic positions were targeted and the same would happen in the Eastern Cape.
He expected Kiviet not to toe the line, which would “build a case for us to remove the premier”.
“She won’t listen to the ANC [under the new provincial leadership], she’ll get support from somewhere else. It’s just a matter of time,” he said. Most members of the current provincial cabinet are seen as supporters of Mcebisi Jonas, the provincial finance minister, who contested the position of provincial chairperson.
Jonas seemed a shoo-in for the post as he is a seasoned campaigner with a powerful government position and the election was held on his home turf. Yet with the backing of the left, Masualle received 1031 to Jonas’s 930 votes.
Two weeks before the conference, Jonas snapped up the OR Tambo region, which centres on Mthatha, at a sometimes violent regional conference where a friend of Jonas was hit on the head with a brick.
The left then regrouped and decided to target individual delegates.
Anti-communist rhetoric was central to Jonas’s campaign, with campaigners asking delegates if they “want to be led by the communists” and warning that Masualle would allow the province “to be run from Cosatu House”.
Masualle’s detractors also underscored his taste for purges, pointing to the dissolution of the board of the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) during his short stint as finance minister this year.
His supporters hit back by reminding delegates about Jonas’s run-ins with the law, particularly the fact that his name featured in the Pillay report, which uncovered massive corruption in the ECDC. The report was overturned by the Grahamstown High Court.
They also highlighted Jonas’s business support, claiming that he was a tool for the “capitalists” to recapture the ANC. Fingers were also pointed at pro-Jonas provincial leaders who had forced the province to support a third term for former president Thabo Mbeki at Polokwane, even though the province was split on the matter.
At the weekend conference in East London, a day-long debate on conference credentials marked the shifting of the tide in Masualle’s favour. Fifty delegates from the pro-Jonas Veterans’ League were shown the door because the league is not officially recognised by ANC structures, while Masualle’s supporters also convinced the conference to allow a further 50 delegates, sympathetic to him, to vote.