Royals in ANC succession fight
Top contenders begin canvassing Pondo king and queen
THE Eastern Cape has become a key battleground for ANC presidential hopefuls trying to garner support ahead of the party’s national conference in December.
While the ANC announced earlier this week that Cyril Ramaphosa would address supporters at Walter Sisulu’s Nelson Mandela campus in Mthatha today, another presidential hopeful, Baleka Mbete, visited Eastern Mpondoland Queen Lombekiso MaSobhuza Sigcau at Qaukeni Great Place a week ago.
Ramaphosa is the keynote speaker at the ANC’s 105th provincial birthday celebrations where premier Phumulo Masualle will deliver a welcoming address.
Former ANC Youth League president Lulu Johnson, an ANC MP, confirmed yesterday that Mbete had visited Qaukeni “where she was grilled about rumours she is being touted as an ANC presidential candidate”.
“She did confirm that she had been approached by ANC members to stand, and she has received blessings during these visits from traditional leaders,” Johnson told the Saturday Dispatch yesterday.
Mbete’s visit to Qaukeni comes a few months after she visited Western Mpondoland King Ndamase Ndamase.
Ndamase’s spokesman Prince Mlamli Ndamase confirmed Baleka’s visit “sometime late last year”.
“I can confirm that she [Baleka] did mention the issue of her availability to be a presidential candidate.
“But understand one thing – royal houses have nothing to do with politics, and so when she raised this, we were in no position to comment.
“Ours was to address issues that have to do with community development, not party politics,” Ndamase said.
Mbete’s visits to palaces in the province follow Daily Dispatch reports early last year that she had held a traditional ceremony at her Mqanduli village where her Amahlubi clan blessed her campaign to take over from President Jacob Zuma.
At the time, Mbete confirmed she had been approached by some ANC members to stand as presidential candidate in December this year.
Johnson said Mbete was accompanied by her husband, Keorapetse Kgositsile, and an unidentified traditional leader from the Swaziland royal house of Sobhuza to Qaukeni.
Queen Dlamini-Sigcau is a princess of the Sobhuza clan in Swaziland.
Johnson said Mbete would take her campaign to Umlazi this weekend where she will attend a funeral and also address traditional leaders from the province.
“She will be in KZN as per an invite by traditional leaders from that side. I can confirm that she will be there and will have similar discussions.”
Johnson said engagements with traditional leaders included clarity about the role royal houses were supposed to play in local governance.
“This is not about ANC succession but also about the critical role that traditional leaders are supposed to play in the local sphere,” Johnson said.
Eastern Mpondoland Prince Mzwandile Maraqana and King Zanozuko Sigcau’s spokesman also confirmed Mbete’s visit to Zanozuko’s Ndimakude Great Place in Flagstaff, adding that her visit followed that of another presidential hopeful, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, last month.
Maraqana said: “DlaminiZuma was also here on December 18 and 19.”
The outgoing African Union president, Dlamini-Zuma was the first to publicly pronounce her availability to stand as her exhusband’s successor, followed by Mbete during the ceremony held in Mqanduli earlier this year.
The media also threw the name of former KwaZulu-Natal ANC chairman Zweli Mkhize into the pool earlier this week as a compromise candidate if he does not stand as Ramaphosa’s deputy.
Mkize visited the Eastern Cape several times before the August 3 local elections last year and addressed the province’s branch secretaries and chairmen while also visiting the province’s biggest regions such as O R Tambo and Amathole.
He even attended the funeral of the late Mnquma ANC election candidate Sibongile Mzanywa last year. Mzanywa, Mbhashe’s ward 17 ANC candidate, died in a car accident a few weeks before the elections.
The lobbying continues while the party has yet to declare the nomination process open.
Despite this, the ANC Wo- men’s League and Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal have already pronounced Dlamini-Zuma as their preferred candidate.
Johnson said Mbete was the most senior ANC leader by virtue of being a chairman “and she was once a deputy president of the country”.
“It stands to reason that she has been approached by some senior leaders to lead the ANC.” — zineg@dispatch.co.za