North West Premier Thandi Modise is facing a revolt, with an ANC faction planning to replace her with provincial party chairperson Supra Mahumapelo.
The plot flows from the fallout in the province from the ANC’s national succession struggle, which will be decided at the party’s congress in Mangaung in the Free State next year.
Modise has close links with the ANC Youth League and is seen by President Jacob Zuma’s circle as an opponent.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that a campaign is afoot to ask Luthuli House to recall Modise to take up her elected position as deputy secretary general, a full-time position in terms of the party’s constitution.
Modise was deployed to the North West in December last year to stabilise her home province, which has long been troubled by political infighting that has spread into the government.
A senior member of the provincial legislature who is sympathetic to Mahumapelo said that Modise should have left the province once the new leadership was elected.
“It’s been a tradition that immediately after provincial executive committee [PEC] elections there is a reshuffle to accommodate new PEC members in the government. The tragedy in the North West is that this is not happening.
“Why is it so difficult for Thandi to deploy three people in government? Why doesn’t she take the chairperson, the deputy chairperson [China Dodovu] and the treasurer [Philly Mapulane]? She is preparing fertile ground for disunity in the province.”
Modise’s spokesperson, Cornelius Monama, said the premier was “aware of such rumours through the media”.
A PEC member sympathising with Modise also said the premier knew about the plan to get rid of her. “She became aware of this thing a long time ago. She just didn’t want to raise it in a manner that would attract attention.”
Modise refused to respond to allegations that she has discussed the campaign to remove her with some ANC leaders. She said that the ANC was best placed to respond to this claim.
Calls for Mahumapelo to become the premier began when he won majority support at the February provincial congress. Some supporters carried placards declaring him the new premier during victory celebrations.
Chasing power
This week Mahumapelo distanced himself from a campaign to elevate him to the first citizen of the province.
“I said in previous interviews and in my discussions with the premier and the leadership that I’ve got no interest in being in government, if I was allowed to make a personal choice.
“I want to send a message that being elected in ANC structures should not necessarily translate into being deployed in a senior position in government.”
A PEC member close to the Mahumapelo campaign said calls for Modise to vacate the office of the premier had not been tabled at PEC meetings but “it’s being talked about in the street”. “We didn’t discuss it because it would project us as people who are after power.”
Mahumapelo’s detractors said he felt uncomfortable with Modise’s presence because he could not exercise his own power while a senior ANC leader was running the provincial government.
ANC provincial spokesperson Kenny Morolong described allegations of a plot to remove Modise as “fictitious” and “ridiculous”.
“They are intended to undermine the leadership of the ANC and the premier,” Morolong said.
Modise’s close links with the youth league have stoked the tensions. She is accused of taking sides in the contest between political factions in the province, one led by Mahumapelo and the other by provincial secretary Kabelo Mataboge.
Modise rubbished the claims.
“The premier is the national leader of the ANC and engages with all structures of the ANC, including its leagues, associations and provinces, and does not take sides with individuals,” said Monama.
However, Modise was aware that “her positions and roles in the ANC will always make her a subject of interpretation and analysis by fellow comrades”.
The move to unseat her comes at the time when Mataboge, one of her allies, has been hauled before the provincial ANC’s disciplinary committee for failing to register candidates in seven wards in the Tlokwe municipality in the run-up to the municipal elections.
Mataboge’s supporters, mainly in the youth league, claimed that the disciplinary steps taken against him were part of the battle to advance the cause of Zuma and secretary general Gwede Mantashe in Mangaung. The league wants the party’s deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to replace Zuma and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to take over from Mantashe.
Youth league provincial chairperson Papiki Baboile said the league would challenge the decision to discipline Mataboge because “he is being targeted”.
The investigation is being conducted by Albert Kekesi, the municipal manager of Bophirima.
But Baboile said that the PEC had merely recommended that future registration processes should be decentralised.
“Nowhere does the report say that Kabelo should be disciplined or that he’s the one who failed to register the candidates,” he said.
Court cases provide politicians with ammunition in provincial infighting
Political infighting in North West appears to have shifted to a new battleground the justice system.
This week the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) distributed copies of a culpable homicide docket against ANC provincial secretary Kabelo Mataboge, who was the driver of a car that killed a fellow ANC member Ookame Sam “Valdes” Seribe in 2002.
Almost 10 years later political tension in the province has resulted in the docket being dusted off, ostensibly to secure justice for the Seribe family in Itsoseng outside Lichtenburg.
On Friday a protest march is planned outside Bojanala district municipality’s chambers, the venue of a provincial executive committee meeting, to call for the reopening of the culpable homicide case.
Mataboge is a key supporter of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema in North West.
Cosas provincial chairperson Tshiamo Tsotetsi told the M&G the organisation’s involvement in helping the Seribe family revive the case had nothing to do with politics, it was because the family had approached the organisation for help.
Seribe’s mother, Kedisaletse Seribe, said that she had indeed approached Cosas for help. “No one helped me. Even the Road Accident Fund has not paid anything. There was never a court hearing. Everything just went dead.”
Cosas claimed Mataboge had used his political influence to kill the case. He was the ANC Youth League’s provincial secretary at the time.
Tsotetsi insisted that the call for the resuscitation of the culpable homicide case against Mataboge was not being timed to score political points. “We cannot continue to dismiss serious criminal cases using allegations that there is a political conspiracy,” said Tsotetsi.
Mataboge said it was an “emotive matter” to talk about the death of Seribe, particularly when the circumstances surrounding the revival of the case were political.
“It is saddening that instead of the party mourning and respecting the memory of comrade Valdes, the matter has been relegated to the gutter of factional politics. This thing is used as a tool to pursue factional fights in the province against the provincial secretary,” said Mataboge.
“If there is genuine interest in obtaining justice, why is the matter being brought up at the height of political disagreements?”
He said those using the case against him disrespected the fact that he also mourned Seribe. But he said: “I accept that I didn’t maintain contact with the family to settle the matter in an African way.”
It was not true that he used political influence to kill the case, Mataboge said.
“We did everything we were supposed to do with the police after the accident. At no stage did we get an indication from the public prosecution whether they wanted to prosecute or not”.
Another criminal matter which has been harnessed to ANC infighting is the murder of former councillor Moss Phakoe.
Mataboge’s supporters are rejoicing at the arrest of Rustenburg mayor Mathew Wolmarans and a fellow politician, Amos Mataboge, in connection with the killing, while the supporters of ANC provincial chairman Supra Mahumapelo view the arrests as a political ploy.
The two were arrested last Friday, a day after the ANC provincial working committee took a decision to haul Kabelo Mataboge before a disciplinary committee for failing to register candidates to contest seven wards in Tlokwe for local government elections.
This week Cosatu vowed to make its presence felt at the Rustenburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday when the suspects will appear in a bail application.
There were claims that Mahumapelo had held a meeting with the provincial prosecuting authority to secure bail for the suspects in the Phakoe murder case.
Mahumapelo denies this.
“I have never met anyone from the National Prosecuting Authority. I don’t even know where the NPA offices are. If indeed it’s true, why don’t the people making those allegations report the matter to the relevant authorities?”
Cosatu provincial secretary Solly Phetoe claimed that the union federation had been informed that there was “serious political interference from senior leadership” in Phakoe’s murder case. He did not name the leaders accused of interference.
Mataboge has appeared alongside Phetoe in protest marches relating to the case.