Party constitution bars Zuma from extending presidency
Contrary to the fears of some, Jacob Zuma cannot lead the ANC after the end of 2017. But it is not clear anyone else can either, unless the party’s factions make a deal to share leadership positions.
As the ANC conference draws nearer, the chances that it can hold a leadership election whose result will be accepted by the losers seem the slimmest yet. It is not even clear that it can hold a conference that complies with its constitution. But if it does not choose new leaders, it will be saddled with a leadership that violates that constitution and can be thrown out by the courts. This may make a compromise the only way out, however much the factions may want to avoid it.
Confident ANC claims that the conference will go ahead and elect a leadership do not seem credible. Disputes over the way branch delegates were chosen are rife and several provincial leaderships face legal challenges. So deep is the crisis that the campaign teams of both Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa claim they have a majority; both quote numbers to back this up. If the two camps both say they have hard evidence they have won, how will they accept the result if they lose?
The process has been so flawed that both sides have more than enough ammunition to challenge a victory by their opponents. (Does anyone really believe that in eThekwini, an anti-Zuma stronghold, the first 57 branches to nominate all chose Dlamini-Zuma?)
The internal crisis is so great that it is not certain the ANC can hold a conference that is not vulnerable to legal challenge. There are still branches that have not nominated delegates, either because members are fighting each other or because they can’t achieve a quorum. Less than 90% of the conference delegates may therefore be chosen by branches. But the ANC constitution says 90% must be branch delegates. If only a few branches can’t send delegates, the conference will therefore not be constitutional unless votes are taken from the leagues and provinces, which send the rest of the delegates.
Even if the ANC solves this problem, it seems almost inevitable that the faction whose candidate receives fewer branch nominations will contest the result.
The faction that supports Zuma is said to be happy to see the conference collapse so that he can remain ANC president. But the ANC constitution says he can’t. It stipulates that the national executive committee, which includes the president and the other top six leaders, is in office for five years. As this term expires in December, the leadership can no longer be in office at the end of 2017.
ANC leaders know this — one told a reporter that nothing in the ANC constitution allowed the national executive to extend its term. So do their opponents in the ANC who asked courts to find that its Free State leadership is no longer legally in office because its four-year term ended in August.
There is, therefore, little chance that ignoring the ANC constitution will go unnoticed.
This may well force on the ANC a solution neither faction wants. A look at the ANC constitution suggests that a compromise may be the only option. If the ANC wants a legitimate leadership in 2018, it must choose new leaders in December. Given mounting evidence that it can’t do that if there is a contested election, a deal may be the only way out.
If politics do not force the factions to compromise before the conference or at it, the courts may force them to do it.