More join race to lead ANC

LINDIWE SISULU, MATHEWS PHOSA, BALEKA MBETE, JEFF RADEBE

The upcoming ANC national conference may have an unprecedented number of candidates contesting for the position of party president. In addition to the two main players – Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – the names of Lindiwe Sisulu, Mathews Phosa, Baleka Mbete and Jeff Radebe are being bandied about. Sisulu and Phosa have confirmed their availability for the position while Mbete and Radebe are yet to do so.

But crowding the ballot paper with half a dozen candidates is potentially dangerous for the party. It could affect the fortunes of one of the main contenders, who might lose vital votes, spelling the difference between victory and defeat.

The voting delegates for either Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma may choose not to vote for any other candidates. Members from KwaZulu-Natal may stick to their home candidate, Dlamini-Zuma, or back another KZN-born candidate, Radebe.

Mbete would also likely benefit from regional votes because of her loyalty to President Jacob Zuma. Sisulu seems to derive support mainly from the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Limpopo and Gauteng. At the weekend she was nominated by the ANC Women’s League Mnquma sub-region to stand for the party presidency and she accepted. A list of candidates from the Ramaphosa camp doing the rounds in the Eastern Cape ANC puts Sisulu as ANC deputy president to Ramaphosa.

The real risk is that if the ballot system requires that each voting delegate elect one candidate, Ramaphosa may get less votes than Dlamini-Zuma because of the votes that go to the other four candidates. This would favour Dlamini-Zuma, whose followers are unlikely to consider voting for anyone else. The same results should be expected if the congress takes Zuma’s proposal at the ANC policy conference recently that each of the top six positions should be contested separately.

However, political analyst Steven Friedman said most of the candidates won’t be nominated due to the requirement that candidates must be nominated by a province. “It is unlikely that more than two of them will win majority support in a province,” he said.