The Big Read: KZN gamechanger for ANC

26 February 2015 - 02:27 By S'Thembiso Msomi
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While all eyes were on the recent turmoil in parliament, a potentially game-changing development was playing itself out down in the Banana City.

On Friday the 13th, a day after members of the EFF interrupted President Jacob Zuma's speech and were brutally ejected from the House, about 500 ANC members gathered at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban.

They were delegates to the party's eThekwini regional conference, at which mayor James Nxumalo and rival Zandile Gumede were vying for the influential post of regional chairman.

Whoever won, given the ANC's unassailable dominance in the city, was almost guaranteed to be elected mayor after next year's local government elections.

But that is not why the conference was a potential gamechanger.

The outcome of the eThekwini conference could have far-reaching consequences at both the provincial and national levels for the ANC.

The region is the ANC's biggest in terms of membership. It sends more delegates to provincial and national ANC gatherings than any other .

If you have your sights on becoming premier of KwaZulu-Natal, a top ANC official, or even president, your chances are enhanced if eThekwini is in your corner.

In 2005, it was eThekwini - then the ANC's second-biggest region - that initiated a campaign in the ruling party to have Zuma elected party president.

Since then the region's membership has grown rapidly, further strengthening its influence.

Twice last year, the regional conference had to be postponed after lobbying in some branches deteriorated into fist fights and intimidation at gunpoint.

For all involved, the stakes were very high.

It all began as a struggle between those who wanted to consolidate their control of the metro through Nxumalo and those who wanted to dislodge him and take over one of the country's richest municipalities .

The Gumede faction became increasingly associated with another election campaign: getting provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala elected provincial chairman and KwaZulu-Natal premier in 2019.

Current premier and provincial chairman Senzo Mchunu is seen as "too close" to the Nxumalo group, which wants him to retain the two positions until 2019.

The ANC does not officially allow lobbying on behalf of aspirants to the ANC presidency - Zuma quits in 2017 - but that has not stopped members and activists from talking.

With the exception of North West, which wants Zuma's term as party leader extended by two years so that he steps down as ANC leader only when his term as head of state expires in 2019, most party structures have begun preparing for life after Zuma.

The dominant view so far is that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will be elected unopposed as Zuma's successor at party level.

Even his ideological opponents in the ANC concede that it would be difficult to challenge his election.

The real battle ahead of 2017 is over who will become Ramaphosa's deputy. Whoever wins stands a great chance of taking over from Ramaphosa as party leader in 2022.

A number of names are being bandied about. But the most dominant are those of secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize and party national chairman and Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete.

In eThekwini, the Gumede group would prefer Mkhize as the next ANC deputy president. The Nxumalo group, on the other hand, is warming to a growing campaign - especially in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal - to have Mantashe as Ramaphosa's No2.

Because Nxumalo is also the SA Communist Party's provincial chairman, his group's support for Mantashe - a former national chairman of the SACP - has given the eThekwini leadership battle an ideological flavour.

Gumede's supporters accused Nxumalo and his group "of trying to take the ANC from within".

This ire intensified after the conference following Nxumalo's victory, with some leaders of the Gumede campaign privately alleging that their complaints about how the election was run will not be listened to at Luthuli House, where the communist Mantashe is in charge.

The claims are made despite evidence that Mantashe had ruled in favour of the Gumede group when, two days before the conference, he wrote to the party in the province saying a Lamontville township branch and two others should be disqualified from voting at the conference.

Mantashe had dealt his supposed camp a heavy blow when he wrote to Zikalala warning that allowing the three branches, all of which had failed a membership audit, to vote "will set a wrong and dangerous precedent for the organisation".

However, Mantashe's decision was overturned when Mchunu allegedly ordered that the branches be allowed to attend and that the decision on their status would have to be taken by delegates during the conference. The delegates decided that the branches could vote.

In the end, Nxumalo won by 253 votes to Gumede's 212.

Gumede's supporters are now challenging the outcome. They stormed the party's provincial offices on Monday demanding that the conference result be declared "null and void".

Even if fresh elections were held the indications from branches are that Nxumalo would still have an edge over Gumede.

What is clear is that the ANC's biggest region is now split, ending the kind of block voting that has made KwaZulu-Natal the ANC kingmaker within the party.

Such a development means a reconfiguration of the ANC's internal power dynamics and, most certainly, a realignment of forces as the party prepares itself for life after Zuma.

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