Johannesburg - Factions within the ANC are seemingly undeterred by the ban on succession debate as the ruling party is set to elect a new national leadership in December next year.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe reportedly said last week there were six candidates who had raised their hands to succeed President Jacob Zuma as ANC leader, adding: “What we have agreed on is that there must be a debate openly.”
ANC Gauteng secretary Hope Papo on Wednesday criticised the circulation by “faceless people” of lists containing the names of their comrades who were punted as candidates for the national executive committee of the ANC in 2017.
The lists, he said, had the names of ANC provincial chairman Paul Mashatile and his deputy and Gauteng Premier David Makhura, who had both distanced themselves from the slate.
Papo said the provincial working committee had strongly condemned the circulation of the divisive lists “as a form of factionalism and promotion of slate politics”. The tendency was also condemned by the 12th ANC Gauteng provincial conference in 2014.
Papo said the ANC national general council in 2010 adopted a position on factionalism that “those who engage in such activities are, in fact, undermining the organisation and its work and at worst are undermining the unity of the organisation”.
Factions within the ANC include the so-called premier league which is said to favour AU Commission chairwoman Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed the president. Despite its existence, the faction has not been condemned by the ANC leadership. Zuma is said to prefer Dlamini-Zuma over his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa as the next president of Africa’s richest economy.
In Ramaphosa’s corner is the labour federation Cosatu’s biggest union, the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union, which wants him to succeed Zuma as the number one citizen, as does the ANC in Gauteng and Eastern Cape.
The Star