Elective conferences shore up Ramaphosa

• New provincial leadership in contested Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal a blow to Zuma loyalists

The election of new ANC leadership in two important provinces at the weekend was a marked boost for President Cyril Ramaphosa, tightening his grip on the party, which has been highly contested by opponents from the camp of former president Jacob Zuma.

The leadership elected in Gauteng and the party’s largest province, KwaZulu-Natal, was a blow to Ramaphosa’s opponents. In both, delegates went into the conference sharply divided, with the vote resulting in a mix of leaders from both sides taking the top six positions. Significantly, though, several key pro-Zuma candidates did not make it into the top positions.

At the KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference, which concluded on Saturday, Ramaphosa and his allies got a leg up with the election of Mike Mabuyakhulu, who backed Ramaphosa in the run-up to the national ANC conference at Nasrec, as deputy chairman, and Mdumiseni Ntuli as secretary.

The pair beat current premier Willies Mchunu and former secretary and staunch Zuma ally Super Zuma to the two key posts.

Sihle Zikalala, a Zuma ally who has shown his support by attending the former president’s appearances in court on graft charges, was elected provincial chairman unopposed.

However, insiders say his post had been agreed to in the run-up to the race and had it not been for a political agreement, his position was not guaranteed.

In Gauteng, acting chairman and premier David Makhura was elected unopposed as chairman. The heavily contested position of deputy chairman was won by Panyaza Lesufi, the Gauteng education MEC who was also a staunch Ramaphosa backer in the run-up to the

Nasrec national conference. The secretariat in Gauteng was won by those aligned to Lesufi’s opponent, Lebogang Maile.

In the Gauteng electoral race, Maile was aligned to Zuma loyalist Mzwandile Masina, who was beaten to the post of treasurer by former Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau.

While newly elected secretary in Gauteng Jacob Khawe was aligned to Maile in the Gauteng election, he had campaigned for Ramaphosa in the run-up to the ANC’s national conference in December.

Addressing both gatherings, Ramaphosa stressed his message of the importance of unity in the ANC. Since his election in December, unity has been his central theme in a bid to avert another debilitating split ahead of the key 2019 national election, where Gauteng and KwaZuluNatal will be key battlegrounds.

Although the Zuma grouping suffered a setback in the leadership election, the KwaZulu-Natal conference reportedly took a decision that the new leadership should approach the ANC national executive committee and ask it to review the decision not to support Zuma during his corruption trial.

Zuma has used his court appearances to attack his opponents in the ANC.

Earlier in 2018, the ANC’s national executive committee resolved that no ANC structures should support anyone facing charges and that those who wanted to should do so in their personal capacity.

ANC leaders such as Zikalala and North West chairman Supra Mahumapelo have been at court showing support for Zuma, each time in their personal capacity.

Zuma is back in court again this week.

Addressing the KwaZuluNatal conference on Saturday, Ramaphosa said there were no winners or losers and that a united ANC was the winner. He called on all delegates to accept the outcome. Ramaphosa also urged members to refrain from going to court again to challenge the outcome.

The two provincial conferences drew to a close the ANC’s provincial election season.

However, there remain two outstanding court challenges to its Limpopo and Free State gatherings. In Limpopo, the group aligned to Ramaphosa bagged the majority of the positions in the top leadership.

In the Free State, the ANC has finally filed opposing papers to an application brought by a group of members trying to nullify its conference that took place in May.

The leadership elected in the province is aligned to ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, a Zuma ally.

The disgruntled members in the Free State are arguing that the party had acted in contempt of court when it held the conference because it did not rerun branch general meetings before the conference as ordered by the High Court in Bloemfontein in December.

In its opposing papers, filed on Friday, ANC Free State provincial secretary Paseka Nompondo said the processes followed were in line with the court’s ruling.

He said that the conduct of the group approaching the court again was placing the “administration of justice into disrepute” and making a mockery of the principle of finality of court decisions.

Nompondo asked the court to dismiss the application.