Lobbying behind the scenes for Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi to take up a top position in the ANC is gaining momentum. And the ANC Youth League, among Vavi’s most hostile recent critics, is adding its weight to the lobby.
Some senior ANC and youth league leaders close to Fikile Mbalula, the sports and recreation minister, and youth league president Julius Malema, have held informal talks with Vavi and some of his supporters on the left to persuade him to accept a position as one of the ANC’s top six officials during the party’s elective conference next year.
ANC insiders said the group lobbying for Vavi was being led by Tokyo Sexwale, the human settlements minister; Thabang Makwetla, the deputy minister of defence and military veterans and an ANC national executive committee member; and the ANC’s Veterans’ League.
Malema and Vavi have been at each other’s throats for the past two years. The Cosatu leader publicly called for a lifestyle audit of Malema and other ANC politicians and Malema said the ANC should take disciplinary action against Vavi after he called some party leaders “hyenas”.
Kissed and made up
But ANC leaders said Vavi and Malema had since kissed and made up. Their main focus now was to push for leadership and policy changes in the run-up to the ANC’s all-important 2012 national conference in Mangaung.
Malema and youth league leaders “were told they need to work with Vavi if their campaign for leadership change in the ANC in 2012 was to succeed”, a senior ANC leader close to Mbalula said.
The leader, who wanted to be anonymous, said that the rationale for roping Vavi into the Mbalula faction was to win working-class support in the alliance. “Comrades came to realise that his influence within the alliance was crucial for their agenda,” the leader said.
“If you have been observant you will realise that he [Vavi] is becoming a spokesperson for those who want change in 2012,” said the ANC leader.
A senior alliance leader said that Vavi would be willing to work with the Mbalula faction because of a fallout between himself, on the one hand and President Jacob Zuma, Blade Nzimande, the South African Communist Party general secretary, and Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general, on the other.
Vavi’s account in a Sunday Independent report last weekend of a phone call from Malema has been interpreted by some in the alliance as a clear indication that he is getting closer to the youth league leader.
Vavi said Malema had called him to apologise for a youth league statement slamming the Cosatu leader. Said a youth league leader: “We realised it was a mistake on our part to attack Vavi in public …
“A decision has been taken that we should work with him. This is because we [the league] share his concerns on the policy direction of the government and the ANC under JZ’s leadership,” said the leader.
Criticism
Both Vavi and Malema, once regarded as staunch Zuma supporters, have made it clear recently they are unhappy with the government’s policy direction. Both have also criticised some of Zuma’s decisions on key government appointments and the alleged influence of the Gupta family on the ANC president.
The youth league has not publicly pronounced on leadership positions in the ANC but has made it clear that it wants Mbalula to replace Mantashe as ANC secretary general and ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to replace Zuma as ANC president.
Sexwale is being touted for the position of ANC deputy president, while Vavi is being considered to take over either as the party’s chairperson or deputy secretary general.
Vavi told the Mail & Guardian he was unaware of any lobbying for him to serve in one of the top six ANC leadership positions or more generally on the national executive committee. “No one has ever approached me. I have, in the past, come across this as only a rumour.”
But he also said there was nothing shocking in his having a harmonious relationship with Malema. “I am in contact with all leaders of the ANC, including President Jacob Zuma,” he said.
Asked if he would consider serving the ANC directly, Vavi said: “It will depend on them [Cosatu workers] whether I stay at Cosatu or not.”
Makwetla’s spokesperson, Ntime Skosane, dismissed claims that Makwetla was involved in any discussion about ANC leadership issues.
Sexwale’s spokesperson, Mandulo Maphumolo, questioned the integrity of the M&G‘s sources when approached for comment. She said the claims about Sexwale leading a lobby group that supported Vavi for a top ANC position was spread by people who wanted to use the newspaper “for reasons best known to themselves”.