DURBAN - WITH six days to go before the ANC elective conference, the presidential front-runners, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, engaged in a last-minute contest in KwaZulu-Natal, the party’s biggest province, this weekend.
Experts said they needed to approach the conference with cool heads as the outcome could go either way.
On Saturday, both contenders visited the province that will deploy 870 delegates to the conference set for December 16 to 20 at Nasrec in Joburg.
Dlamini Zuma spoke at Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium in Clermont while Ramaphosa visited a Shembe church gathering in Mtubatuba and later dashed to the Eastern Cape.
Speaking to Shembe followers in Zulu, Ramaphosa asked for blessings and prayers ahead of the conference and pleaded for ANC delegates to choose the “right people”.
Dlamini Zuma returned to her home town of Bulwer, where she is expected to speak at a function today.
After the nominations were tallied this week, Ramaphosa had been nominated by five provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo, the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State nominated Dlamini Zuma.
Ramaphosa’s supporters have cited the outcome of the provincial general congresses (PGCs) as a step closer for him to the ANC presidency and, by implication, of the country in 2019.
But Professor Bheki Mngomezulu, a politics lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, and independent Durban analyst Thabani Khumalo warned Ramaphosa’s backers there was “still a long way to go”.
“There’s no done deal at this stage. There are lot of issues to look into. The provinces that nominated Ramaphosa are small compared to those that nominated Dlamini Zuma,” said Mngomezulu.
“Both must go to the conference with cool heads as the result could go either way.”
Mngomezulu said nominations at branch level did not translate into votes at the ANC conference.
Of the 5240 voting delegates expected to attend what Khumalo dubbed a “hot conference”, 90% would come from branches.
The rest will be from the women’s league, youth and veterans’ leagues and provincial executive committees (PECs).
The women’s and youth leagues have endorsed Dlamini Zuma while the veterans, alliance partners the SACP and Cosatu have picked Ramaphosa.
Mngomezulu said the leagues and some PECs would probably lean towards Dlamini Zuma.
Mpumalanga chairperson and premier David “DD” Mabuza stunned many by pushing for the so-called unity candidate, which garnered 223 nominations at his province’s PGC.
Mngomezulu said Mabuza was “playing politics to the core” by inventing what is called unity in the ANC while he was “a diehard Zuma supporter and likely to swing the unity votes to Dlamini Zuma”.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who was eyeing the position of chairperson on Ramaphosa’s slate, said there was no individual called “unity” in the ANC.
If the conference were marred by irregularities or chaos, the ground would be fertile for a splinter party, said Mngomezulu.
In 2008, former ANC chairperson, Mosiuoa Lekota formed the Congress of the People (Cope) after the turbulent Polokwane conference which saw Zuma dislodge Thabo Mbeki, Lekota’s staunch ally.
Khumalo said of the conference procedure: “The campaigning is divided into three phases. First you go to churches and business people and lobby them; secondly, you go to the branches; and thirdly, it’s the main one, the conference.”
Dlamini Zuma and Ramaphosa have tasted defeat at previous elective conferences.
In 1994, when the ANC held its elective conference in Bloemfontein, Ramaphosa was widely regarded as Mandela’s anointed successor but Mbeki landed the top post unopposed in 1999 when Mandela stepped down. Despite this, Ramaphosa stayed on the national executive committee (NEC), the party’s highest decision-making body.
In 2007, during the turbulent Polokwane conference, Dlamini Zuma was nominated on Mbeki’s slate as secretary-general. She lost to the incumbent, Gwede Mantashe, and also stayed on with the NEC.
Although seven candidates have been nominated for the position, it is now a two-horse race, with the others (Lindiwe Sisulu, Jeff Radebe, Dr Zweli Mkhize, Baleka Mbete and Mathews Phosa) not receiving a single nomination from any province.
But they could still be in the mix if they are nominated from the floor and secure at least 25% seconders at the conference.