Chris Gayle is back in top form at the wrong time for the Proteas.
The possible reinstatement of corruption charges against former president Jacob Zuma won’t affect the ANC’s 2019 election campaign because he is no longer its face, said the party’s head of elections and campaigns, Fikile Mbalula.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, the former police minister said there was nothing wrong with Zuma campaigning for the party as an ordinary member, because he still has a significant following.
Zuma’s legal woes were a matter between him and his family because he no longer serves on any leadership structure of the ANC, he added.
“Jacob Zuma, as a former president, is not the face of the ANC’s campaign. He is a person with popularity. He is a person who is well known and we will deploy him according to his strengths in the [election] campaign,” Mbalula said. “If, in your spare time, where you’ve still got to face those charges but you can contribute to the campaign, there is nothing taboo about that. It would have been taboo if somebody [like that] had been at the helm of the ANC or government.”
Last week Mbalula said Zuma had volunteered to campaign in KwaZulu-Natal and that the party would consider officially deploying him should he be available. He said the same courtesy had been extended to former presidents Kgalema Motlanthe and Thabo Mbeki.
There have been fears that Zuma’s recall and subsequent resignation would affect the ANC’s popularity in places such as KwaZulu-Natal, where his support base is concentrated. But Mbalula believes the resignation has been widely accepted, including by Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini, and that the ANC is building a united base to guard against any loss of support.
As part of the ANC’s much-touted “new dawn”, Mbalula’s role as head of elections will involve reclaiming the votes the ANC lost during the 2016 municipal polls. The party’s support dipped from 62% in 2011 to 54% and it lost three key metros.
Much of this decline was attributed to Zuma’s leadership. Mbalula said the party would now focus on reversing the effect and perceptions left by the “Jacob Zuma phenomenon”, which he said had “vandalised the image of the ANC”.
The biggest “blunder”, according to Mbalula, was the party’s unwillingness to act decisively on the upgrades to Zuma’s Nkandla compound and on the dealings of the Guptas. “That’s one monumental blunder we could have avoided. We could have been more decisive in dealing with the image that has been undermined by the family of the Guptas,” he said.
“Those are the things that raised eyebrows for our people. It was a sorry state. And the fact that there was no voice that said: ‘We are sorry and we are going to take action.’”
So far, however, the change of leadership appears to have worked, with Mbalula saying there was increased interest in the party because Ramaphosa was “a face that comes with relief”. He said he believed Ramaphosa’s election as ANC president and the party’s “radical” policies such as free higher education and the expropriation of land without compensation would improve the ANC’s 2019 electoral prospects.
Mbalula said the party would craft its election strategy by conducting internal and external assessments.
Capturing the youth vote would be a particular focus, he said. The ANC has been criticised for its leadership collective not representing South Africa’s mainly youthful population.
Mbalula said that although the age of leaders didn’t affect their ability to resonate with young people, the ANC did need to ensure that it put more young people in prominent leadership positions. “There are young people who support the ANC and its liberation posture who I believe, because of their capabilities and understanding of ANC policy, belong in the benches of Parliament. Awake … not sleeping there.”
Mbalula acknowledged the potential of the Economic Freedom Fighters to capture the youth vote, particularly in higher education institutions, but said he didn’t see the EFF as an immediate threat to the ANC.
Both Ramaphosa and Deputy President David Mabuza have made impassioned pleas for EFF leader Julius Malema to “return home” to the ANC. Mbalula said the call was a genuine acknowledgment by ANC leaders that they had made a mistake by expelling Malema, but he didn’t believe Malema would leave his own party to return to the ANC.
Yet, he said, similar EFF and ANC policy positions, especially on the issue of land, meant that Malema could still be useful to the ruling party without returning to it.
“Whether or not the ANC will realign with the EFF, don’t throw it [the possibility] out of the window. But we are [still] opponents,” he said.
“In our differences with the EFF about the things they have raised and the disruptions in Parliament, we have agreed on the most fundamental, earth-shattering, progress-making policy option, which is about our people. So, where does it place Malema? Do you need Malema in the ANC to be a warm body?”