Bringing out the big guns for ANC poll

A billionaire and the ex-wife of a president are squaring up for the ANC leadership battle. Does it bring to mind last year’s US election? Makhosini Nkosi takes a look at the candidates’ prospects

Towards the end of last year, the US had a presidential election in which a billionaire businessman stood against a highly qualified woman who was once in charge of her country's foreign affairs ministry. She was also the wife of a former president.

Towards the end of this year, the ANC will have an election in which its billionaire deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will square off against former AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the position of party president. She is also a former foreign affairs minister and ex-wife of President Jacob Zuma.

As in the case of former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, this will be Dlamini-Zuma's second attempt at the top job. Former president Thabo Mbeki had campaigned strongly for her in the run-up to the 2007 Polokwane conference. As with Clinton's campaign of 2016, this time around Dlamini-Zuma has pundits suggesting she will emerge the winner at the 54th ANC elective conference in Gauteng.

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Perhaps most important, Clinton's bid for the White House was torpedoed by allegations of corruption levelled against her family's philanthropic foundation.

Dlamini-Zuma has no direct link with corruption allegations. However, the faction rooting for her is mired in numerous scandals and allegations of corruption.

Like Clinton's campaign, Dlamini-Zuma's bid appears well resourced and to be far outspending Ramaphosa's, which is playing catch-up.

Unlike Donald Trump's campaign, which was controversial and dependent in part on hogging news headlines , Ramaphosa has no nagging scandals. That said, he carries the burden of a "capitalist" label in an election in which "radical economic transformation" is a ubiquitous slogan.

He also hasn't been able to shake the monkey of the Marikana massacre off his back and his involvement in events prior to it.

Mitigating such challenges is the support of trade union federation and ANC alliance partner Cosatu.

Key to any political campaign is a group of credible and vocal surrogates, and Cosatu is a big boost for Ramaphosa in that regard.

Corruption does not appear to be much of an issue to ANC structures, but it is evidently a big concern for its support base.

The party performs better at the polls when it is perceived to be hard on corruption than when it is seen to be lax.

In the 2004 general election, the party surpassed the two-thirds majority mark and came close to 70% of the vote. This was despite Mbeki's unpopular stance on HIV/Aids and his handling of the Zimbabwe crisis. At the time, the ANC could not be accused of being corrupt. In fact, among its top election messages in 2004 was that it had "established the Scorpions to fight organised crime and corruption".

The Scorpions carried out arrests and criminal-asset seizures in the full glare of news cameras and it had a reputation for going after politicians and high-profile state officials. That way, corruption was an individual label and not an ANC bugbear.

Dlamini-Zuma's campaign has not figured out how to project her as resolute against corruption.

It would be difficult for her to pronounce strongly on it while she is being backed by the Zuma faction.

Rightly or wrongly, Zuma's name has become synonymous with corruption and he has not done much to distance himself from it. However, he continues to be Dlamini-Zuma's chief surrogate.

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Perhaps the biggest blunder of Dlamini-Zuma's campaign and the Zuma faction is that the slogan of radical economic transformation has been championed by Zuma, who has lost almost all his political capital. Many people question this concept mainly because it is being raised by a president who lacks public trust. The slogan should have been championed by Dlamini-Zuma in order to gain credibility and give her campaign an unassailable rallying message.

She does, however, have a strong advantage over Ramaphosa. Dlamini-Zuma is the undisputed presidential candidate for the Zuma camp. The other side has Ramaphosa and many other presidential candidates.

There is a real possibility that the faction opposed to Zuma could implode like former president Kgalema Motlanthe's did at the 2012 elective conference. His camp was so disorganised it produced two candidates, Tokyo Sexwale and Mathews Phosa, to compete with Ramaphosa for the position of party deputy president.

Indications until recently were that Dlamini-Zuma's faction would win the conference. That has since become doubtful, with the inroads Ramaphosa's faction has been making in Zuma's heartland of KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere.

However, that is not guaranteed to continue. A fightback strategy is expected from the Zuma faction, which may include the heckling of Ramaphosa and his supporters when they visit key power bases.

Even if that were not to happen, there is still no guaranteeing that the December conference will be orderly and productive. It could well degenerate into a spectacle seen in earlier ANC Youth League and party provincial and regional conferences, in which the outcome of an election could not be deemed to reflect the will of the membership, if the election were to happen at all.

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It has been the practice that if a conference can't produce a new leadership, the old leadership continues until credible elections are held.

If the December conference were to fail, it is probable that Zuma would continue as ANC president well into 2018 and towards the 2019 elections. That would essentially mean that the party would not be able to recall him.

With him at the helm, the party would continue to oppose motions of no confidence against him in parliament. That would secure his tenure at the Union Buildings until the end of his term in 2019.

With such a scenario playing itself out, the ANC would face the real possibility of losing power in 2019.

Alternatively, it could split down the middle along factional lines. Ramaphosa's faction would be the first choice for opposition parties to form a coalition government with, backed by Cosatu and the SACP.

It does appear, though, that both factions prefer a united ANC and continued dominance of the political landscape. However, the party can't unite with Zuma at the helm. He is undoubtedly the polarising figure not only in the ANC itself but within the alliance as a whole.

There are no signs of negotiations for his exit, and it is unlikely that he would agree to go before the year-end conference.

Party elders, who historically have been instrumental in putting together such deals, have in this case pronounced on the Zuma conundrum.

Mbeki, the only surviving former ANC president, has of late taken to megaphone diplomacy in supporting calls for Zuma to step down. Motlanthe is also in the ranks of those against Zuma.

The two could play a more meaningful role in healing divisions in the ANC and securing a dignified exit for Zuma.

There is another, more viable, way for the ANC to prevent its crisis from morphing into a political disaster. The party can open its election processes to the public. Televised debates between Ramaphosa, Dlamini-Zuma and all other candidates would allow the best candidate to emerge the leader of the ANC going into the 2019 elections.

That would also energise the party support base to levels not seen since 1994.

The ANC's internal democratic processes must be seen to be democratic. The wishes of ordinary party members and supporters must be listened to and heeded. Candidates must openly campaign and be subjected to public scrutiny.

• Nkosi is an independent strategic communications and crisis management specialist