The ANC race to watch this year is that for the post of deputy president. There is broad agreement that President Cyril Ramaphosa will win a second term as head of the party.
The noise from the remnants of the radical economic transformation (RET) faction, following Arthur Fraser’s allegations that Ramaphosa illegally stashed cash at his Limpopo farm, will die down. That is not to say further revelations won’t be trumpeted in an attempt to discredit him — in fact, this is exactly what his backers are expecting.
But let’s put the RET faction to one side for now.
The real contest in December will be among Ramaphosa backers, who are broadly split into the hardliners and the pragmatists
The real contest in December will be among Ramaphosa backers, who are broadly split into the hardliners and the pragmatists. Both groups support Ramaphosa for a second term — but that’s where agreement ends.
They are hopelessly divided about all other positions in the top six and also on the party’s posture towards those accused of graft.
The hardliners back ANC renewal and are committed to Ramaphosa’s anticorruption campaign.
They include national executive committee (NEC) members such as Aaron Motsoaledi and Pravin Gordhan, who shun anyone who is not squeaky clean. This group would most likely support a woman for the position of deputy president — Mmamoloko Kubayi or Thandi Modise, for instance.
The more “practical” of Ramaphosa’s backers are those willing to tactically engage with other party leaders irrespective of whether there are clouds over their heads. Their commitment to renewal is mainly a matter of appearances, in the hope that the ANC can reverse its frighteningly fast electoral decline.
The interesting thing about these leaders is how flexible they are when it comes to who they are willing to work with to try to secure their own positions at the December conference.
Newly elected ANC Limpopo chair Stan Mathabatha can be seen as part of this grouping. Party membership has grown in his province and Limpopo is likely to take the second-largest delegation to the conference in December.
Mathabatha is eyeing the position of national chair, now held by Gwede Mantashe, and is said to be close to treasurer-general Paul Mashatile, whom his province is willing to back for the deputy presidency.
Mathabatha’s flexibility when it comes to tainted comrades is seen in the presence on his slate at the party’s weekend conference of former Vhembe mayor Florence Radzilani as his deputy — she resigned as mayor over the VBS Mutual Bank scandal.
Others in the pro-Ramaphosa group who are less scrupulous about whom they work with include KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala, and Mandla Ndlovu, who chairs the ANC in Mpumalanga.
Aside from tactical flexibility, another big difference between the pro-Ramaphosa groups is their size: the anticorruption purists do not have wide backing from party branches.
In essence, they don’t really bring boots to the battlefield.
Members of the other group will be able to command significant delegate support in December. But the relative purists seem to have Ramaphosa’s ear, and he is likely to endorse their candidates for the top six.
This could be a recipe for conflict at the conference — the pragmatists, with their wider support base, are likely to be able to outmanoeuvre the purists, and by extension Ramaphosa himself.
Hanging over the pre-conference manoeuvring looms the ANC’s ever-worsening electoral prospects
Re-enter the RET bunch.
The pragmatists could decide that to ensure their slate triumphs, they will co-operate with the RET group, which includes such people as Lindiwe Sisulu and Zweli Mkhize.
The resulting horse trading means we are likely to see an NEC very similar to the one elected at Nasrec in 2017: a deeply divided one, with many of its members openly hostile to the president.
However, should all Ramaphosa’s backers unite, compromise and agree on a single slate, space for those linked to the Jacob Zuma project and the RET faction will be limited, making for a smoother ride for Ramaphosa in his second term, at least from within the party.
Still, hanging over the pre-conference manoeuvring looms the ANC’s ever-worsening electoral prospects. By-elections last week showed that the electoral bleeding suffered in local and national elections since 2016 has not been stanched.
Its support dropped significantly in former strongholds such as Soweto and independent elections analyst Dawie Scholtz says there is no doubt we are seeing a continued shift away from the ANC. While it is too early to forecast that the party will drop below 50% nationally in 2024, it remains a distinct possibility.
In Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, black voters are deserting the ANC. Scholtz says the established pattern of the ANC having carte blanche to decide who SA’s president will be is unlikely to survive much longer.
By the time the 2024 elections come around, the ANC could find itself without a big enough share of the vote to be the party that names the premier.
The ANC’s succession battles remain significant for now, but the day is rapidly approaching when they will just be a sideshow in SA politics.
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