Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Top contenders to head ANC set to battle it out
4 Rival factions won’t compromise
EFFORTS to find a compromise candidate to replace President Jacob Zuma as head of the ANC have failed.
By late yesterday supporters of the two top contenders for the position, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa indicated they were prepared to battle it out to the last one standing, when the party’s elective conference begins today.
Ramaphosa comes into the election with 1 860 nominations and five provinces, while Dlamini Zuma has 1 300 nominations and four provinces. Gauteng provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile and Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza have been leading efforts to get a deal on the contentious question of leadership.
A leader in the Dlamini Zuma camp said Ramaphosa’s campaigners were playing hard-ball, and this led to the collapse of talks.
“We have tried but they failed us.. I think the chairpersons have let us down,” he complained.
The leader said another proposal to vote separately on the ANC top six fell flat. The idea had been to ensure that whoever lost could still become deputy president. In July, such a deal was proposed by President Jacob Zuma.
But another senior leader said the unity proposal would have never worked.
“From our caucus, we simply said we are reinstating Lindiwe Sisulu (as Ramaphosa’s running mate) because we want to have credible leaders. There were people like Paul Mashatile who tried to push for a deal with David Mabuza.
“We said we wanted to go to a conference and win it, not for unity with strange bedfellows, but to reunite the ANC,” he said.
“How do you reunite the organisation with people involved in state capture and looting? It would have tainted our campaign.”
ANC voting delegates from two provinces were emphatic that they were sent by their respective branches with mandates on who to vote for, and would not entertain the idea of an “arranged leadership”.
“The popular view among us delegates is that we must stick to our procedure of NEC (national executive committee) election; elect six national officials first, announce the results and then elect NEC additional members,” said the delegate, from the Western Cape.
“We’ve heard about the so-called ‘unity’ approach of splitting the election of the president and deputy president. We are going to argue vigorously against that,” he asserted. His views were echoed by three delegates from the Eastern Cape.
“We all want a united ANC, but it should not be at the expense of leadership collective that compromises the mandates we’ve been given by our branches,” one of the Eastern Cape delegates said.
The delegates were speaking to Independent Media at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto Campus yesterday, while they were receiving their accreditation.
Meanwhile, political analyst Steven Friedman is not convinced that the ANC will manage the conference. He says the sticking point might just be the issue of credentials of delegates, an issue that has played out in the courts in the lead up to the conference.
“There are so many claims of irregularities, there have been so many problems. I gather that they are now saying if there would be any credentials challenges, it won’t happen in the open, but behind closed doors,” he said.
In 2015, the ANC structures struggled to convene their provincial and regional structures because of disputes over branch audit lists and allegations of manipulation of the nomination process and vote- buying, among other irregularities.