Mantashe wins fight with Zuma over Mokonyane

President Jacob Zuma clashed with ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe over Zuma's failed bid to have Nomvula Mokonyane reappointed Gauteng premier this week.

The latest falling-out between the two has sparked panic among senior ANC leaders who fear that strained relations between Zuma and Mantashe so early in his second term could be disastrous.

According to a senior ANC national executive committee (NEC) member close to Zuma, the president was defeated when Mantashe insisted that if the ANC leadership imposed Mokonyane on Gauteng, other female leaders had to be imposed on other provinces.

"We have to work on that relationship, because if things are so bad so early then things could get out of control," said the NEC member. "That fight has implications for 2017 because the feeling is that Gwede is setting up his bases so that he can challenge for the ANC presidency in 2017."

The stand-off between the two leaders took place ahead of an NEC meeting on Monday last week at which the eight ANC premiers were decided.

The ANC's top six officials and the influential national working committee tussled for hours over how to comply with the party's policy of gender balance in the appointment of premiers.

The top six officials presented the names of seven men and one woman and insisted that in those provinces where premiers would be men, women had to be appointed as speakers of the provincial legislature.

The other option, they argued, was to stick to the ANC tradition of ensuring that at least four of the eight candidates were women.

Zuma supporters cited this tradition in arguing that Mokonyane ought to be retained in Gauteng. Among those who wanted her were Mzwandile Masina and Pule Mabe. But that argument was defeated when other NEC members said that appointing Mokonyane would undermine the party structures in Gauteng, whose provincial executive committee did not include her among the three names it had submitted for consideration.

When NEC members sought to persuade some of the other provinces to consider dropping their male candidates in favour of women, none was willing to do so. Instead, they provided "political reasons" for their male candidate not being changed.

"KwaZulu-Natal made it clear that they were not willing to negotiate on Senzo [Mchunu]," said a participant in the meeting.

"Their argument was that, unlike other ANC provinces, they had only been in power for 10 years because the Inkatha Freedom Party was in charge for the first decade of democracy.

"North West also argued that the province had experienced instability for a long time because of imposed premiers. They said they wanted Supra [Mahumapelo] because the two centres of power arrangement was not working."

Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape also refused to change their preferred candidates. In the end, only the Northern Cape had a woman appointed, incumbent Sylvia Lucas.

Gauteng ANC chairman Paul Mashatile is said to have left the NEC meeting to brief his provincial executive, which was holding a parallel meeting.

"Paul told us a decision was reached to appoint Ntombi Mekgwe as premier. Comrades even clapped hands to congratulate her," said a member of the provincial committee.

But the next day it was announced that David Makhura would get the job.

"When we went to bed Mekgwe was premier, but when we woke up Makhura had replaced her. We don't know what happened," said another provincial committee member.