EDITOR’S NOTE
A reading of the Sunday papers yesterday would indicate that the fun and games that characterised the ruling party in the period leading to the ousting of Thabo Mbeki by Jacob Zuma in 2007 are again upon us.
With the shafting of Zuma’s nemesis, youth league leader Julius Malema, by way of the ANC’s national disciplinary committee, it had appeared that the president was coasting to his re-election as party leader in Bloemfontein in December.
Zuma’s grip on his home base, KwaZulu-Natal, the province with the single largest number of delegates to the elective conference, is firm. He also enjoys significant support in the second-largest region, the eastern Cape, while Mpumalanga and arguably the Free State are in his column. But the northern provinces Gauteng, North-West, Limpopo and the Northern Cape are proving troublesome for the man from Nkandla.
Significantly, it would appear that Zuma can no longer count on the unconditional support of Cosatu, whose secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, has cooled towards the president.
Vavi has lambasted Zuma’s government for, among other vices, corruption – which, despite government noises that it is being tackled, is rampant and perhaps worse than before Zuma took charge – the tolling of Gauteng roads and the government’s seeming reluctance to ban labour brokers.
If you speak to Zuma loyalists from KZN, their man is a shoo-in for re-election. But chat to an ANC supporter in Gauteng, Zuma’s days are numbered. In the north, they are touting Zuma’s deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, as the man fit to be king. Both camps – pro and anti-Zuma – are already in full campaign mode. And the mischief-making that emerged in the pre-Polokwane dirty campaign to get rid of Mbeki is now also evident.
One Sunday newspaper quoted people in the Motlanthe faction saying he was willing and able to challenge Zuma should he be nominated by at least two provinces.
Another, the Sunday Tribune, had sources in the Zuma camp punting businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as a potential deputy president of the party. Making him Zuma’s running mate would be a smart move on the part of the president’s camp. A man with impeccable struggle credentials, Ramaphosa also inspires confidence and has gravitas in spades. He is worthy of being our first citizen and would be taken seriously by his counterparts at international forums.
As Zuma’s number two, he would also assure a jittery middle class and business – worried about Zuma’s lacklustre and invisible leadership – that an assured and decisive hand will one day be in charge of our affairs.
Meanwhile, perhaps not unconnected to the presidential tussle for votes, Motlanthe is facing allegations that his partner, Gugu Mtshali, attempted to solicit a bribe from an aviation company in return for government support to sell arms to Iran. This claim may or may not be true, but it’s curious that it is being made months before the ANC conference.
It is also worth noting that when Motlanthe was president, warming the seat for Zuma and in the process getting a good press for his steady stewardship, reports, which proved to be false, were planted in newspapers that he had impregnated a young woman.
Now all this internal ANC jockeying for positions would not matter if the party was not so dominant in our politics, and if state institutions – put in place in terms of the constitution to protect our rights – were not so weak.
But our reality is that a bad choice by the ANC means a bad choice for the country. Until another party with the votes to govern emerges, we all have a stake in who gets elected ANC president.
