Ramaphosa seems to be frontrunner but it’s a fraught process

If it feels as if Cyril Ramaphosa is winning the ANC presidential race that is because he is. That is, he is winning among us, the general public. Research by Citzens’ Survey, which was publicised last week, confirms the widely held perception among the urban middle class and business classes: Ramaphosa is well ahead in the popularity stakes, leading Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma with 43% of public support versus her 16%.

In rural areas, Ramaphosa also leads, with 45% of Africans who intend to vote saying that he should lead the ANC, compared with 21% who side with Dlamini-Zuma.

Since the branch nomination process began last month, journalists have tried totting up the scores of the two main candidates. The Mail & Guardian newspaper estimated on Friday that Ramaphosa already had more than twice the number of nominations of DlaminiZuma, with just under onethird of ANC branches having held their general meetings to make nominations.

City Press newspaper looked at outcomes so far in KwaZulu-Natal, where Dlamini-Zuma has 260 nominations against Ramaphosa’s 69, with two thirds of branches still to go, and in Limpopo, where Ramaphosa is far in the lead in five of the six regions, with the result of the sixth pending.

All of this information relies on sources and leaks and is unverifiable. There is no real way of knowing until that moment comes (if it does indeed come) who has won the leadership race.

This is what makes the Citizens’ Survey a valuable piece of work. In the absence of an available poll of ANC members, could the survey be used as some kind of proxy for what ANC members think? This is especially so because the ANC, by virtue of its size, dominates politics and civil society. Sentiments of the wider population should reflect, more or less, the sentiment in the branches.

At previous ANC conferences, there were two major ways in which the popular will was subverted. The first was through regional power brokers “owning” branches, with members voting according to the will of the local strong man or woman. This practice has been rife for more than a decade. While Luthuli House audited all branches to establish which were in good standing before the nominations process began, it is difficult to imagine that this phenomenon has been wiped out. More likely some kind of accommodation between Gwede Mantashe and his deputy, Jessie Duarte, was reached.

The second way in which popular sentiment was manipulated was through the strong men who run the provinces. While the ANC constitution says the conference is a conference of branches, in reality, it has never worked like that. Branches have been part of provincial delegations. They sit together in delegations and caucus together. The ability of provincial chairs and secretaries to enforce a line has been close to totalitarian.

This was helped along by the official adopted code of electing leaders, a paper called “Through the Eye of the Needle”, which seeks to integrate the formal process of democracy in the ANC constitution with the principles of democratic centralism, in which leadership plays a guiding role in what are ostensibly democratic decisions. The paper says that while branch delegates get their mandate from their branch, they can change their mind once at the conference.

THAT DELEGATES ARE PAID IS THE ANC’S WORST-KEPT SECRET. IT IS THIS THAT IN THE END WILL DECIDE THE OUTCOME

When the delegate votes, says the Eye of the Needle, he or she is “guided by the mandate of their branch, region and province” but is also expected “to exercise his or her own judgment”. The result is that provincial strongmen have been easily able to compel delegates to vote in a certain way.

In the past, provinces controlled this preference system by fighting out a provincial position before the conference began. As this will not happen this time and branches will make their nominations directly to Luthuli House, the strong men have lost leverage. But not all of it. Their biggest leverage is money. That delegates are paid is the ANC’s worst-kept secret. It is this that in the end will decide the outcome.

Two Wits academics, David Everatt and Ross Jennings, who analysed the Citizens’ Survey, warned how far off the ANC’s long-term interests such an approach would be. The “repellent factor” — that which would drive voters away — around Dlamini-Zuma is rather large. Of the respondents, 32% said they would not vote for the ANC in 2019 if she were to become its president.

At 17%, Ramaphosa’s repellent factor is substantially less.

It’s all shaping up to be a fine reckoning.