Durban - Come Saturday morning, KwaZulu-Natal will have two centres of power if Premier Senzo Mchunu loses his ANC chairmanship position to provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala, as the party will not reshuffle government positions.
Zikalala has received strong support to unseat Mchunu as the provincial chairman. The two will stand for the position at the party’s eighth provincial conference to start on Friday morning in Pietermaritzburg.
Zikalala said the election for the top five would take place on Friday evening and the result would be announced later, possible around midnight.
Zikalala and provincial executive committee member Hlengiwe Mavimbela told journalists at a press briefing at the Royal Showgrounds – the venue for the conference – that it had nothing to do with government positions and that Mchunu would continue to lead the government if he lost to Zikalala.
“Being the chairman of the province or not, he is going to continue as the premier because the ANC has deployed him as the premier of the province,” said Mavimbela.
The ANC Youth League in the province, which has announced its support for Zikalala, also said this week that it would rally behind Mchunu to keep his government position.
In KwaZulu-Natal the provincial chairman had always been the premier, since the party had taken power from the IFP.
The ANC’s alliance partner, the SACP, warned last year that two centres of power in provinces would be disastrous.
Zikalala and Mavimbela declined to answer questions about how the party would deal with two centres of power.
“You know, S’bu Ndebele once said the battle of ‘if’ was never won. We will deal with issues as and when they become relevant. We are going to end up debating issues that are not in front of us,” said Zikalala.
Youth league provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo also said this week that the league would make sure Mchunu was not be removed from his government position. “Senzo Mchunu remains the premier of the province of KwaZulu-Natal till 2019,” he said.
Zikalala said there would be 1 300 delegates at the conference. There were no arrangements to tighten security.
“As opposed to parking soldiers outside here, we are appealing for political consciousness to delegates.
We are going to see decency, we are going to see debate here,” he said.
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete will open the conference. President Jacob Zuma is to speak on Friday night.
The Mercury