ANC to elect president first, then
The party is breaking with the past to try to seal unity and avoid the winner-takes-all position
The ANC, in an extraordinary departure from its usual process, plans to hold separate voting sessions for the election of its new president and the remaining top six officials.
The move is intended to limit the influence of predetermined slates on the election outcome and the often divisive winner-takes-all approach that has become characteristic of ANC leadership contests.
The ANC’s leadership election at its December conference in Soweto will be strongly contested. Its usual process is to nominate the top six leaders first and then conduct the voting for all the officials.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian this week, party spokesperson Khusela Sangoni said the conference would vote on and announce a new president first, and would then allow delegates an opportunity for lobby groups to negotiate among themselves for the remaining positions.
“We’re trying to also discourage a winner-takes-all approach,” Sangoni said. “So if you are really the sort of leadership that we require in the ANC, you must be able to say: ‘Yes, we have won president and arguably we could have won the entire top six but in the interest of uniting the movement can we accommodate names from the others and so on.’ ”
Seven candidates are currently contesting the presidential position but it is likely the final ballot will be narrowed down once the provincial general councils have announced who they will be nominating.
To qualify, candidates need to be nominated by a province or a league, or 25% of the delegates at the conference. So far, Cyril Ramaphosa has been endorsed by the Northern Cape provincial general council and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been endorsed by the ANC Women’s League. Jeff Radebe, Lindiwe Sisulu, national chairperson Baleka Mbete, ANC treasurer Zweli Mkhize and his predecessor Mathews Phosa have yet to secure any of these.
“When we get to Nasrec [where the conference is to be held], we’re going to have a ballot that has two maybe three candidates, and anybody else that wants to contest at that point will have to get 25% of that conference to raise their name from the floor. It’s a big ask,” Sangoni said. ANC branches that failed to hold their nomination meetings last week were granted an extension by the party bosses at its Luthuli House headquarters.
All branch general meetings are now expected to be wrapped up this weekend.
ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and former African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are the two frontrunners for the position of president.
By Thursday, Ramaphosa held a commanding lead in the Northern Cape, the Western Cape and parts of the Eastern Cape, where nominations were finalised, as well as in Gauteng and Limpopo.
Dlamini-Zuma’s campaign has gained significant support over the past two weeks after more branches held their meetings and officially endorsed her in KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Free State.
But Mpumalanga has become the ANC’s second-largest province and could swing the advantage either way.
Mpumalanga
The battle for the support of the del-