Uncontested top 6 is ‘compromise’
INSURANCE: SECURES POLITICAL FUTURE FOR ALL SIDES
But proposal can be part of hidden agenda by some provincial leaders.
The call by ANC provincial leaders for the top six leadership positions not to be contested at the party’s national conference is an acceptance of President Jacob Zuma’s call for a political compromise.
It is also a realisation by both main camps for the need to secure a political future for all sides, a leading political analyst has said.
The analyst, Professor Sipho Seepe, said the initiative by provincial executives to opt for a noncontested top six and party unity was due to a realisation that a winner-takes-all scenario was something that losers would not be prepared to face.
“The resurfacing of this notion, as propounded by the provincial leadership, is in part a recognition that the future remains uncertain. In other words, such a proposition is becoming attractive to both sides – for one, it secures the political future for both sides,” Seepe said.
Seepe recalled Jacob Zuma’s plea, at the conclusion of the party’s national policy conference earlier this year, that the loser in the presidential race should be given the deputy position. He said Zuma was criticised in the media for attempting to secure a position for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
“They chose the proposition as self-serving. What has changed is that there is a recognition that Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign is not guaranteed victory as some had hoped,” Seepe said.
However, the proposal by ANC provincial leaders from Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Free State, North West and KwaZulu-Natal that the top six leadership positions should not be contested could be rejected by the conference and some of the presidential candidates.
The branches could argue that it was imposed from the top.
But observers said the new proposition was part of a hidden agenda by some of the provincial leaders to secure vital positions at the top for themselves.
Another political analyst, Ralph Mathekga, said although the initiator of the idea, Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza, had good intentions to broker peace and avoid a divisive contest before the conference, Mabuza himself had a vested interest in the race. "He stands to personally gain because he would like to be in the top six as a condition,” Mathekga said.
Some of the provincial leaders feature in the top six in both the Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma camps. Mabuza is gunning for deputy president, for which he was nominated by the ANC Youth League.
The provinces agreed during the last weekend’s Mpumalanga provincial general council in Mbombela that the top six positions should not to be contested in December. ANCWL deputy president Sisi Ntombela told the gathering that the league supported the initiative.