Laughing along with the ebb and flow of #ANC54

WHEN Mzwanele Manyi laughs, the lounge doesn’t laugh with him – at least not at first.

The bete noir of White Minority Capital and their captured media, ie. the rest of us, is now in the game too. He’s the owner of The New Age and ANN7, bought through vendor financing.

That’s code for the owners giving him the money to buy it on a loan with unspecified repayment commitments – much like the former president of the ANC Jacob Zuma’s vendor financing of his Nkandla debt.

Mzwanele, the media mogul once known as Jimmy, is in the house, the media lounge at Nasrec. His laugh, which sounds like an asthmatic bray, manages to pierce the hubbub until there is no hubbub.

He’s holding court with a bunch of acolytes in toning shirts. Someone makes a joke and he laughs. He laughs again. By the third time, there’s derisory counter laughing from the hacks, almost competitive, but eventually everyone’s just laughing because it’s that kind of day. Outside, he’s just as affable. Asked if he’s enjoying his new role in the media, he’s wreathed in smiles and that typical laugh. “We’re keeping you on your toes,” he cackles.

Being at a political conference, cosseted in the lounge is a world of its own. Your existence is locked into the life force of the conference. You sleep when it sleeps; you work, frenetically, when it emotes and then you sit and wait. There’s a lot of idle chatter; permutations, micro battles all analysed endlessly, like auguries examining the entrails of chickens.

The day progresses a lot smoother than anyone thinks, suddenly the lounge is clearing to get into the hall for the nomination process which is now a plenary session. The learned among us nod sagely as they reach for their notebooks and pens, everything progressing nicely because both sides think they’re winning so they can afford to be magnanimous. The TV screens light up with live footage from inside the hall. The out1going party chair is Baleka Mbete.

“Nominations. Comrade in the yellow shirt,” she says, allowing one of the delegates to rise and address the hall. Yellow shirt? Which one? Just about everyone of the 5 000 is wearing yellow.

“Comrades, comrades,” she starts to bellow over the mic, as the delegates start getting into the swing of things. It’s a flashback moment, I’m back in February (every February) watching the State of the Nation with her as Speaker of Parliament. When a delegate gets up, grabs the mic and intones “I rise on a point of…” to make his point, it’s like being back in Cape Town.

It’s going to be a two-horse race after treasurer- general Zweli Mkhize declines, followed by Nomvula Mokonyane, promptly dubbed Mama inaction by the same colleague. The story’s done for the night. I manage to get home and in bed just before midnight. At quarter past the phone rings. There are reports that the voting’s been suspended, it’s all over TV, the twitterverse. Do we stop the presses? Do we slip a page? Do we go digital?

We opt for digital, but wait for our team to prove the story. There have been too many conferences where journalists have ended up with egg on their faces for calling results too early because the story seemed too good to be true.

And so it is with this one. We get it confirmed as best we can about an hour later, only to file the story to the web and then find the ANC has announced that voting has in fact begun. It’s just after 1am. I climb into bed again. I wake to the sounds of Baleka Mbete, “Comrades, comrades,” she intones. Except it’s not her. It’s the alarm clock. It’s time to go back to Nasrec. Kevin Ritchie is Independent Media Regional Executive Editor in Gauteng