After micro battles and endless nights…
Checking credentials, horse-trading and a flurry of excitement. Voting finally on the move, writes Kevin Ritchie
WHEN Mzwanele Manyi laughs, the lounge doesn’t laugh with him – at least not at first. The bête noir of white minority capital and their captured media, ie the rest of us, is now in the game too. He’s the owner of The New Age and ANN7, bought through vendor financing.
That’s code for the owners giving him the money to buy it on a loan with unspecified repayment commitments – much like the former president of the ANC Jacob Zuma’s vendor financing of his Nkandla debt.
Mzwanele, the media mogul once known as Jimmy, is in the house, the media lounge at Nasrec. His laugh, which sounds like an asthmatic bray, manages to pierce the hubbub until there is no hubbub. Heads look up.
Jimmy’s unmissable. Larger than life in the column centimetres he wins in print, it seems he’s larger than life in life. For one, he’s wearing the yellowest yellow ANC shirt in the entire room – a room where the arctic white of the sofas and the totemic yellow, black and green of the scatter cushions, banners and posters bruise the eyes of the hungover.
He’s holding court with a bunch of acolytes in toning shirts. Someone makes a joke and he laughs. He laughs again. By the third time, there’s derisory counter laughing from the hacks, almost competitive, but eventually everyone’s just laughing because it’s that kind of day.
The air con’s fighting a losing battle against the heat and we’re in the phony conference war between deadlines and delegates released from conference to eat and ablute.
Outside, he’s just as affable. Asked if he’s enjoying his new role in the media, he’s wreathed in smiles and that typical laugh. “We’re keeping you on your toes”, he cackles.
It’s been an interesting time for media. TimesLive managed to announce Cyril Ramaphosa as the presidential winner on Saturday night, it was obvious finger trouble that was taken down as soon as it was posted on the site but not before one of the eagle eyed did a screen grab.
There was nothing equivocal about my colleague Steve Motale though, devoting the entire front page of The Sunday Independent to a glowing endorsement, “unprecedented” as he said himself, to Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s candidacy.
And he’s right. There have been papers that have come out for one party or another at crucial electoral times, but none to my memory have ever got that involved in an actual intra party poll.
Steve is, grinned another newspaper editor in the lounge, nothing if not consistent. He’s living proof though of editorial independence, to say nothing of the diversity of opinion that exists.
Being at a political conference, cosseted in the lounge is a world of its own. Your existence is locked into the life force of the conference. You sleep when it sleeps; you work, frenetically, when it emotes and then you sit and wait. There’s a lot of idle chatter; permutations, micro battles all analysed endlessly.
The day progresses a lot smoother than anyone thinks, suddenly the lounge is clearing to get into the hall for the nomination process which is now a plenary session.
The learned among us nod sagely as they reach for their notebooks and pens, everything progressing nicely because both sides think they’re winning so they can afford to be magnanimous.
The TV screens light up with live footage from inside the hall.
The outgoing party chair is Baleka Mbete.
“Nominations. Comrade in the yellow shirt,” she says, allowing one of the delegates to rise and address the hall. Yellow shirt? Which one? Just about everyone of the 5 000 is wearing yellow.
“Comrades, comrades,” she starts to bellow over the mic, as the delegates start getting into the swing of things.
It’s a flashback moment, I’m back in February (every February) watching the State of the Nation with her as Speaker of Parliament.
When a delegate gets up, grabs the mic and intones “I rise on a point of…” to make his point, it’s like being back in Cape Town.
The TV pans in, ANC TV feed mind you, on a delegate, sprawled next to his chair, out for the count. “Eish, cadre,” quips one of my colleagues, “that’s one vote down.”
It’s going to be a two-horse race after treasurer- general Zweli Mkhize declines, followed by Nomvula Mokonyane, promptly dubbed Mama inaction by the same colleague. The story’s done for the night. As I leave, I see the figure of Carl Niehaus making his way down the corridor outside the media lounge. He’s dressed in his now customary black, complete with forage cap, all with ANC embroidery. I’m sure the intention is to appear revolutionary as befits a member of the MK Veterans. He grunts when I greet him, keeping his head low. I know how he feels.
I manage to get home and in bed just before midnight.
At quarter past the phone rings. There are reports that the voting’s been suspended, it’s all over TV, the twitterverse.
Do we stop the presses? Do we slip a page? Do we go digital?
We opt for digital, but wait for our team to prove the story.
There have been too many conferences where journalists have ended up with egg on their faces for calling results too early because the story seemed too good to be true. And so it is with this one. We get it confirmed as best we can about an hour later, only to file the story to the web and then find the ANC has announced that voting has in fact begun. It’s just after 1am. I climb into bed again. I wake to the sounds of Baleka Mbete, “Comrades, comrades,” she intones. Except it’s not her. It’s the alarm clock. It’s time to go back to Nasrec.
Your existence is locked into the life force of the conference
Kevin Ritchie is Independent Media’s Regional Executive Editor – Gauteng