A deputy president in waiting?

The holy trinity — that’s what ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile has been called after taking on two posts in the office of the secretary-general, as well as fulfilling his own duties at Luthuli House. 

From humble beginnings as an activist in Alexandra in the 1980s, Mashatile has become an indispensable part of the ANC’s national machinery. And there may be bigger things in store for him: the post of deputy president, for the party and SA. 

The ANC’s policy conference at Nasrec this past weekend showed President Cyril Ramaphosa still has a firm hold on power. While the “radical economic transformation” (RET) faction was present — particularly in the form of the newly elected KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) party leadership — its opposition to Ramaphosa’s agenda was easily rebuffed. This suggests that talk of fireworks at the national elective conference in December are off the mark as far as the position of president is concerned — for now, at least.

But the December conference is a transitional one. Once he is elected to serve a second term, Ramaphosa will effectively have entered the departure lounge, crafting a legacy as he prepares to leave office. (Presidents may not serve more than two terms.) His deputy will step into the limelight as a possible contender for the presidency — provided the ANC can retain its tenuous grip on power, that is. 

Does this moment belong to Mashatile?  

In an interview with the FM last week, Mashatile was coy about whether he has thrown his hat into the ring. He trots out the old cliché when he says any decision is “up to the ANC branches”.

Yet he has emerged as the strongest candidate from the FM’s canvassing of party structures. Gauteng, parts of the North West, about 30% of the Eastern Cape, at least half of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and parts of KZN can be counted on to back him come December.

While it’s early in the succession game, it appears the race is his to lose. 

Is ‘The Don’ stepping up?

Mashatile has legacy on his side. An old hand in party politics, he emerged from the United Democratic Front in the 1980s, and went on to lead one of the ANC’s most dynamic provinces, Gauteng, for  a decade. Along the way, he served in both provincial and national government.

He’s nicknamed “The Don” of the “Alex Mafia” — though he’s quick to explain that the term simply refers to a group of 1980s comrades from the township who went on to serve in government. The name harks back to the 1960s, when it was used for a group of leaders that included Umkhonto we Sizwe’s Joe Modise and Josiah Jele, as well as Thomas Nkobe and Joe Nhlanhla.

“It is political ... there is nothing illegal about it,” he says with a  laugh.

At the national level, Mashatile served as minister of arts & culture under Jacob Zuma, before being elected treasurer on Ramaphosa’s slate in 2017. Among the leaders elected to the top six that year, Mashatile was the only one who consistently opposed Zuma, more so than even Ramaphosa.

As far back as 2012, his province openly backed Kgalema Motlanthe as its preferred candidate for the presidency, over Zuma. And in 2014, Mashatile was a lone voice on the ANC national executive committee, speaking out against Zuma’s Nkandla upgrades. At the time, he called out ministers for their farcical defence of the expense and pushed for Zuma to be held to account for the R246m refurbishing of his homestead.

That was then. 

Now, Ramaphosa’s backers — many of whom were, ironically, firmly in the Zuma camp in 2014 — are attempting to cast Mashatile as an “RET proxy”, saying he is cosying up to Zuma’s backers to feed his own ambition and secure the deputy presidency.

The Ankole in the room

When it comes to the race for the deputy presidency, the incumbent, David Mabuza, doesn’t seem to have raised his hand for the position again. He’ll in any case be unable to mount a campaign without the support of his home base, Mpumalanga, which has turned its attentions elsewhere.

As for the “CR22” group, it is touting Eastern Cape chair Oscar Mabuyane for the post, after flirting briefly with 38-year-old justice minister and former ANC Youth League leader Ronald Lamola.

There is even a push from some  Ramaphosa supporters to broaden the top six to include a second deputy secretary-general, with whispers of the possibility of a second deputy president, likely to be a female candidate. Possible names mooted for that position include Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi and ANC economic transformation head Mmamoloko Kubayi — though the proposal is unlikely to gain traction. 

But Ramaphosa’s slate for December has been slow to take shape — in large part because of a lack of potential candidates.

Mashatile, for his part, would like to do away with slates completely, with leaders elected under their own steam and then being united by a common programme.

“Rather than uniting slates, we should have no slates at all and, long before conference, look at the best team to take us forward,” he says. He does acknowledge that you can’t make a change like that “overnight”. 

ANC chair Gwede Mantashe, firmly in Ramaphosa’s camp, says the deputy president needs to be a “content person”.

“You don’t need an old man like me who is tired and ageing,” he tells the FM. “You need a younger person ... not a young person, a younger person ... a person who has energy and some time ahead of him.”

Mabuyane would fit that bill. The 48-year-old has just been re-elected ANC chair of the Eastern Cape. And he’s seen as a Mantashe protégé of sorts. He believes the ANC needs leadership with a “common perspective”.

Says Mabuyane: “We need visionaries ... as long as the ANC continues to elect people who lack vision, we will forever be in the doldrums ... we need people who are prepared to face anything, even if that means death.”

But he cautions that the party needs to choose its leaders carefully, given the transitional nature of the December conference. “The ANC is a democratic organisation, [so] nothing is guaranteed,” he says. “But bring in an individual now who is able to grow the ANC to another level.”

A senior insider in Ramaphosa’s camp admits that Mashatile is “moving faster” than his rivals.

Mashatile has also played a watchful game: his preferred candidate lost the Eastern Cape conference, but he has made some gains in Limpopo, and could potentially receive votes from that province.

That would be a big win. Limpopo is thought to be the second-largest province numerically after KZN (though Mashatile told media over the weekend that the party has yet to consolidate its membership numbers so, for now, KZN and Mpumalanga remain the top two).

Mpumalanga, led by Ramaphosa loyalist Mandla Ndlovu, will be split on the deputy president, with some supporting Lamola and a large portion backing Mashatile. 

KZN, which brings the largest number of voting delegates, is still on the fence. It is looking for a candidate to take on Ramaphosa, with former health minister Zweli Mkhize emerging as a front-runner — though he’s likely to lose that battle, not least because of the Digital Vibes scandal that saw him leave government.

The election of Siboniso Duma as KZN party chair last month came as a surprise to Ramaphosa’s backers. Duma and his “Taliban” leadership core are not hostile to Mashatile — causing great discomfort among Ramaphosa’s supporters.

Of course, the Phala Phala theft and cover-up — which still looms over Ramaphosa, thanks to his curious unwillingness to simply say what happened — is factoring into ANC succession debates.

At best, the Phala Phala scandal could result in a fine over unpaid taxes, according to some sources; at worst, it could constitute a regulatory infringement of exchange controls. Either way, the revelation about millions in foreign currency stashed at Ramaphosa’s Limpopo game farm has rattled the president.

Three senior sources confirm that, at one point, Ramaphosa considered stepping down to contain any fallout from Phala Phala for the ANC.

There was even talk that a former leader, such as Motlanthe, could be brought in as a “caretaker”, should this radical step be required. However, a source close to the president says this is not necessary, as the matter should be ironed out before the national conference in December.

University of Cape Town public policy professor Anthony Butler says while there is some risk that more compromising material will be released ahead of the December conference, what is known about the scandal so far “will not be any impediment whatsoever to Ramaphosa’s re-election”. 

‘We need implementation’

Mashatile is aware of the ANC’s precarious position electorally, saying renewal is imperative if the party is to win back the trust of all South Africans. The state of the economy and corruption are the elephants in the room — and the dirty backdrop against which the ANC’s battles are fought.  

Shifting into campaign mode, he tells the FM he believes the most urgent priority is to grow the economy, to stimulate growth and create jobs.  To do that, the government must first resolve SA’s energy woes. 

It’s a view shared by finance minister Enoch Godongwana, who told the FM this weekend that Eskom’s power crisis results in the economy underperforming by at least 40%.

Mashatile is emphatic that the problem has to be fixed — and fixed now.

“If we don’t get the energy sector right, you're going to have very big challenges in driving growth,” he says. “So in the shortest possible time we need to do away with the problems of load-shedding, we need a consistent supply of energy for industries to work. I would say that should be our biggest priority — to get the energy sector right.”

Private sector investment in energy, getting renewables on stream and installing technology for clean coal are all critical, he adds. And he politely scoffs at the idea of an “Eskom 2.0” — as punted by Mantashe and supported by Ramaphosa. “I like the idea, but it is coming a little too late — we should have done that 10 years ago,” he says.

For Mashatile, the other major areas of focus to get the economy moving are rail, infrastructure, water and tourism. But he acknowledges that implementation remains a key weakness of the government.

“We need to impress upon those deployed in government that they need to focus on implementation and inject a sense of urgency, I think sometimes people are too relaxed,” he says.

Which is true — and to his supporters that’s what makes Mashatile the man for the moment.

The ANC elective conference in December is seen as largely a transitional affair. With Ramaphosa’s re-election seemingly assured, the attention will be on his deputy as a possible contender for the future presidency of the party — and the country, provided the ANC retains its grip on power 

—  What it means:

He has been dubbed an “action man” — he led Gauteng premier David Makhura’s team to cut red tape to make it easier to do business in the province, for example. And two senior leaders who’ve worked with him in government say he is capable, efficient and decisive.

Butler warns that while Mashatile is an “exceptionally capable politician”, he is inexperienced at national level. He’s also not convinced Mashatile has a constituency outside Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and the North West.

“[His] successful handling of the acting secretary-general role demonstrates his mastery of internal ANC dynamics,” Butler says. But, he adds, Mashatile’s grasp of the policy process is largely untested.

At the same time, Butler doesn’t see the rationale for electing either Mabuyane or Lamola to the deputy president post.

Mashatile’s detractors cite corruption as a weakness (though he hasn’t been involved in any major scandals), and suggest his ambition would lead him to “make deals” with the devil to get ahead (the devil, in this instance, being the RET crowd).

But his supporters argue that some of the anchors of Ramaphosa’s renewal project were adopted from the Gauteng ANC led by Mashatile — the idea of an integrity commission being a case in point.

And, critically, it is the RET crowd that is putting up a fight against these measures to renew the ANC — albeit a not very impassioned one, given their wimpish and failed push to have the “step aside” rule scrapped at the party’s weekend policy conference.

While these debates have played out in the background, Mashatile has been otherwise occupied.

He’s been multitasking at Luthuli House — but also grieving the loss of his wife of 26 years, Manzi, who passed away in 2020. Her picture adorns the walls of his home and he speaks passionately about the foundation he started after her death to help struggling students and the poor.

“It really helped us as a family, it brought us new joy as a family to continue her legacy in that way,” he says. 

The succession race may still be wide open, but it’s clear Mashatile has a head start. Whether he can sustain it until December is the presidential question.