A lobby favouring Jacob Zuma as the next ANC leader is making inroads in Limpopo, traditionally a stronghold of President Thabo Mbeki, ANC sources say. With 52 489 members, Limpopo is the ANC’s fourth-largest province, after Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

The most powerful voting bloc at the ANC’s national conferences, the Eastern Cape, has launched an all-out campaign for President Thabo Mbeki to serve another term as ANC president. The Mail & Guardian has learnt that the Eastern Cape is lobbying other provinces, urging them to throw their weight behind him in the ruling party’s bitter succession battle.

The ANC in North West is disobeying guidelines aimed at preventing the hiring of incompetent but politically connected municipal managers. A letter written by ANC provincial secretary Supra Mahumapelo, which is in the possession of the Mail & Guardian, shows that the ANC tried to “hijack” the process of hiring a new municipal manager in Mamusa municipality.

With less than nine months to go before the ANC national conference, which will choose a new leadership, adversaries Jacob Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki are using very different strategies in their attempts to win support. Last weekend was a case in point.

John Moodey, the newly elected DA leader in Gauteng, is a former unionist and ANC member who joined the Democratic Party in 1998 because he felt coloured people were alienated in the ANC. He spoke the Mail & Guardian‘s Mbuyisi Mgibisa abouthis political principles.

A new ANC faction has emerged in North West which plans to oust leaders of the dominant grouping from ANC party structures and government positions in the province. Nicknamed the “Potch mafia”, the grouping is allegedly led by Ndleleni Duma, provincial deputy secretary of the ANC and sports, arts and culture provincial minister.

Residents blame municipal service failure, chronic unemployment and political infighting in the ANC for the recent spate of unrest in North West province. And their complaints have been thrown into harsh relief by the disclosure that the number of people living in extreme to moderate poverty in the province doubled between 1996 and 2005.

Could African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe be the next president of the ANC? He is also in pole position to benefit from the confusion in the party, with a growing number of voices calling for him to be considered as a compromise candidate.