Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Candidates get ready for ANC leadership race
‘Movement to create better and wiser ANC’
SIX candidates are bidding to succeed Jacob Zuma as the leader of the ANC next year, as the party starts the process this weekend to choose its next president, says secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.
“There are six people who have raised their hand that they want to be president” of the party, Mantashe, 61, said.
“What we have agreed on is that there must be a debate openly.”
While the ANC suffered its worst performance in an election this year, its leader is likely to become national president in 2019 as it still has the majority of support.
The new leader will need to reach out to millions of ANC supporters who stayed away from the polls in municipal elections in August after Zuma was implicated in a series of scandals and the economy skirted a second recession in seven years.
From this weekend, top party officials would start a “political education” roadshow to speak to members at branches to help facilitate the process of electing a new leader at its five-yearly conference in December next year, Mantashe said.
Zuma, whose second term as president of the country ends in 2019, has led the ANC since 2007.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, 63, and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Zuma’s 67-yearold ex-wife whose time as chairwoman of the AU Commission ends in January, are seen as the front runners to succeed Zuma.
While Mantashe didn’t name any of the candidates, other potential contenders could be Zweli Mkhize, 60, the ANC’s treasurer-general and former premier of KwaZuluNatal, and Baleka Mbete, 67, the speaker of Parliament and ANC chairwoman.
Zuma, 74, isn’t one of the six candidates and isn’t expected to seek re-election, Mantashe said.
“He’s not in the six. It would be a mistake to stand for a third term,” he said.
“It’s not an unspoken rule, it’s actually spoken because we go on to say the president of the ANC is the ANC candidate for the president of the country.”
South African presidents can serve only two five-year terms.
Zuma has faced increasing calls to step down after the nation’s top court ruled in March that he had violated the constitution by refusing to pay back taxpayer money used to upgrade his private residence.
A report by the public protector released last week suggested he had allowed members of the Gupta family, who are his friends and in business with his son, to influence cabinet appointments and the awarding of state contracts.
“The leadership contest is still wide open, especially given that there is a movement to create a better and wiser ANC,” said Professor Susan Booysen, of the School of Governance at Wits University. – Bloomberg