The ANC numbers game that haunts selection of the top six

It was a passing comment in a long response to a piece by political analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana that first suggested Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane’s personal ambitions stretched far beyond just keeping his job as Eastern Cape premier.

In early January, Ndletyana wrote a piece in this newspaper that was scathing of Mabuyane’s leadership and questioned his suitability for re-election, given a public protector report that implicated the premier and his main rival, Babalo Madikizela, in alleged corruption.

Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, an ANC member and staunch supporter of the premier, was having none of it. He wrote a response dismissing all Ndletyana’s assertions and defending the transaction between Mabuyane and Madikizela that the public protector had flagged as the innocent outcome of a loan agreement between friends.

But then there was this throwaway line: “Must he not be elected to the position of provincial chairperson of the ANC or any position in the ANC, say position of deputy president in the future, because some comrades are given to cooking up baseless allegations against him at the drop of a hat?”

Could it be that Mabuyane’s ultimate goal was to become deputy president? At first it seemed too farfetched and it was tempting to dismiss Sicwetsha as an overzealous Mabuyane fan with an exaggerated sense of his former boss’s standing in the ruling party.

Then again, there is the reality that the race to become deputy president is wide open as the ANC goes to this year’s national conference, with more than half-a-dozen politicians fancying themselves for the post.

So why wouldn’t Mabuyane also want it, especially given the fact that as a provincial chair he has a solid base from which to launch his campaign?

Less than a week after his re-election as Eastern Cape chair, Mabuyane’s lobbyists are selling him as deputy presidential material. One of them even told the Mail & Guardian this weekend that ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa “was not opposed to the idea of Mabuyane becoming deputy president”.

Herein lies the problem for Ramaphosa as he seeks a second term as party president: many of those who are throwing their weight behind the bid want top positions in return. Sooner or later, he has to disappoint many of them.

But will his choice of running mates be based on who would guarantee him most votes at the conference, or on the leadership qualities they would bring to the new top six?

Part of the ANC leadership crisis has been that its provincial structures, especially chairs and secretaries, have become too powerful in deciding who gets elected to the top positions at national level.

Being chair of a large province such as KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga or Eastern Cape almost guarantees you a top six position at the next party national conference if you want one.

Jacob Zuma took this path to become deputy president in 1997, Zweli Mkhize followed in his footsteps to become national treasurer in 2012, and it was from his base as Mpumalanga chair that DD Mabuza launched his bid for the ANC deputy presidency in 2017.

Mabuyane, KwaZulu-Natal ANC chair Sihle Zikalala and his provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli are among those said to be hoping that their provincial posts place them in good positions to make it into the next top six after horse-trading among various provincial delegations.

What often gets lost in all this fussing over numbers as ruling party members prepare for the conference is the quality of the leadership collective that is produced by this kind of horse-trading.

What, for instance, would Mabuyane be bringing in terms of skills to this key ANC structure, which is consulted, albeit informally, by the president about all key positions and appointments?

Recent history shows us that, in a situation where the ANC has a simple majority in parliament, the calibre of individuals making up the top six is important.

In the years during which the top six chose to look the other way, untold damage was done to the government and other constitutional structures as agents of state capture ran amok.

But there were also instances when public objections from top six members forced a rampant president to withdraw the appointment to the National Treasury of a Gupta lackey with no real track record, and stopped the appointment as national police commissioner of an individual with links to known convicts.

If it is only the votes they bring to the table that determine who Ramaphosa chooses to be his running mates, he’ll soon find that he is in the same situation he was when he was first elected in 2017 — unable to make any move without the blessing of those interest groups.