'All presidential campaigns need a solid foundation. In the ANC’s case
Fresh songs and slogans branded on T-shirts; NDZ and CR17 snapbacks and daily social media campaigns; 40-minibus-long convoys and back-to-back weekends of packed stadiums and community halls …
Millions of rands are being spent on nationwide campaigns to win the votes of party delegates to the ANC’s elective conference at Nasrec in Soweto next month.
All presidential campaigns need a solid foundation. In the ANC’s case, this would presumably be a nomination from the candidate’s branch.
But the branches have certainly not been showing blind loyalty. Instead, some of them have gone rogue by refusing to toe a particular line while rival factions have stalled nomination meetings to swing support in their favour or to avoid possible embarrassment.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
NDZ is a member of ward 32’s General Sihle Mbongwa branch in the eThekwini region. But local leaders claim the provincial leadership has attempted to stifle its nomination process because the branch intends to back ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.
eThekwini, a stronghold of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee, was expected to signal its support for Dlamini-Zuma’s campaign early in the race. The branch has 244 members but the meeting to nominate national leaders was postponed on Tuesday night after regional officials arrived without the nomination forms.
Branch secretary Siya Njokweni said two complaints had already been submitted to national officials. “They are deliberately sabotaging us. We do have the numbers in the branch and they know it.”
At the time of going to print, the meeting was still under way.
Zweli Mkhize
The curious case of Zweli Mkhize involves the mysterious disappearance of his name from a branch register and a takeover of his branch by a rival faction.
Before the July policy conference, the ANC treasurer and his wife May Mashego attended a preparatory meeting at their Willowfontein branch in Pietermaritzburg in the Moses Mabhida region.
Less than six months later, Mkhize went back to take part in the nominations meeting but his name was not on the branch membership list. The meeting went ahead and nominated Dlamini-Zuma.
Mkhize lodged a complaint but by this week it had not yet been finalised.
Baleka Mbete
Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete is conducting an under-the-radar campaign, and recently admitted that visibility is her biggest concern. After conducting a traditional ceremony at her ancestral home to bless her decision to contest the ANC presidency, Mbete’s campaign was weakened when the ANC Women’s League refused to endorse her.
She belongs to the Sefako Makgatho branch in the greater Johannesburg region but she failed to receive a nomination there.
Instead the branch backed Ramaphosa for president and left Mbete off its list of preferred top leadership.
Cyril Ramaphosa
The ANC deputy president’s branch is in Chaiwelo, Soweto, where he stayed after moving from Tzaneen in Limpopo after university in the 1980s. The branch nominated Ramaphosa for president and his suggested slate of leaders for the top six positions.
Lindiwe Sisulu
Lindiwe Sisulu secured a nomination from her home base in the Eastern Cape.
She has been making regular visits to the Albertina Sisulu branch in Ngcobo for the past five years, which has now nominated her for president.
“She’s someone we need in the province and her contribution to the meetings is always strong. She’s the type of person who hates corruption,” Albertina Sisulu branch member Jeremiah Hlakula said.
Mathews Phosa
Mpumalanga has been the springboard for the former ANC treasurer’s presidential campaign and his influence is far-reaching.
This week the secretary of the White River branch to which Phosa belongs went to visit him at his home in Mpumalanga to lodge a complaint: the regional officials won’t allow them to convene the nomination meeting because the branch will back Phosa.
He believes it is to stop him from splitting the province’s vote.
“These are the kinds of dirty tricks they are trying because they know I have support. It’s not new but we have to deal with it,” he said.