As the battle for control of the ANC in the Eastern Cape reached a crescendo recently, I read with amusement reports of how different factions allegedly — this being the operative word — supported President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Sunday Times reported that some candidates at that gathering believed any professed support for Ramaphosa by pretender to the throne Babalo Madikizela was a ruse. A deflection so he does not attract negative attention.
“We don’t want any unnecessary attack because we will get arrested before May before we even get the road map for December. There’s no need to endorse anyone but the incumbent otherwise that will bring us unnecessary attention,” a source told the Sunday Times last week. It’s absurd.
If, by any chance, the National Prosecuting Authority and the country’s investigators looking into alleged fraud and corruption involving Dr Zweli Mkhize plan to have him arrested, as publicly speculated, they better act swiftly.
With each passing week, with an increasing number of the ANC provinces and regions holding their elective conferences, it’s going to become harder to convince the public that Mkhize’s arrest is unrelated to ANC battles for leadership at its elective conference in December. The more time lapses and the closer to ANC elections the arrest happens, the more it will appear the wind is being taken out of the sails of his campaign.
Social media has been abuzz with an arrest list, a list the NPA correctly decided not to entertain. But Mkhize’s supporters predictably latched on to it, claiming there are underhanded machinations used to eliminate candidates with potential to contest Ramaphosa at the ANC’s elective conference. And this, in their view, is the same reason people such as Madikizela’s supporters feel compelled to claim support for Ramaphosa even though they don’t. In Limpopo, for example, there’s much talk about how a leader like Danny Msiza, a supposed true champion of the RET faction there, could even be thought to be in support of Ramaphosa. Yet public pronouncements suggest so.
The truth though is that Msiza, who was forced to step aside because of allegations relating to his VBS Mutual Bank case, has opted to choose his battles like Madikizela’s supporters: why endorse anyone other than the incumbent? In the ANC of today, it makes little sense to contest against Ramaphosa this year.
Even those desperate to see Mkhize raise his hand will soon realise it is mission impossible. Their hopes are on two things likely to produce a smidgen of hope — but unlikely in the end to help them. The first is that NPA boss Shamila Batohi must, like her predecessors, make the mistake of disassociating politics from their actions and then arrest Mkhize just as the nominations process gets under way in the ANC. Politically, this will create ructions and fuel fissures but, sadly for them, will not help them get enough delegates to cause an upset against Ramaphosa. What this will achieve though is to further erode confidence in the ANC and Ramaphosa, gnawing at a limited pool that still hopes for an ANC victory in 2024.
The second is that where Mkhize is derailed by arrests ahead of the elective conference, this will leave Lindiwe Sisulu, another pretender to the throne, available to contest.
Can someone tell Manuel his integrity is not dependent on court victories, please?
From a media and public relations point of view, she is getting help. It’s not amazing, but it’s discernible. Her intervention this week, through a staged letter to Ramaphosa requesting that he investigate claims that certain senior ANC leaders were involved in the formation of Congress of the People, was meant to stir. The letter is less about former finance minister Trevor Manuel and others than it is about her announcing herself as a leader interested in ensuring accountability and holding “bathengisi (sell-outs)” accountable. In the public sphere, this will go on for a while, especially with Manuel threatening litigation against media personality Onkgopotse Tabane, the source of the claims. Can someone tell Manuel his integrity is not dependent on court victories, please? Anyway, Ramaphosa will later indicate what’s to be done with the claims and the story will keep growing legs. It will keep Sisulu top of mind as her misguided open letter against the judiciary did several months ago.
But there’s a huge difference between running a close-to-clever political media campaign and gaining voting delegates within the ANC. And that’s how Sisulu will lose the battle against Ramaphosa even before nominations begin.
When all is said and done, those seeking to contest Ramaphosa will not win. At least not this year! The victory by the RET faction in eThekwini was symbolic but numerically insignificant. It is true that KwaZulu-Natal may not even nominate Ramaphosa — to imagine the worst — but that too, on its own, does not mean the end of civilisation as we know it.
To be clear: Mkhize should be arrested as soon as possible should Digital Vibes evidence against him so suggest. Arresting him closer to the ANC conference will only help his supporters to muddy political waters by projecting it as political machinations instead of the simple application of the rule of law.
And so those around Ramaphosa must move to not just worry about whether he wins but how he wins. A victory with a Zweli Mkhize arrested just before the conference is messy and needless. A victory where opponents claim they had to pretend to support the incumbent to avoid arrest is to be shunned. A victory with many accusing Ramaphosa of using state organs against his enemies is something to be avoided. Prof Sipho Seepe is quoted during the week noting “now we see the use of state organs and institutions to remove people who are challenging the incumbent”.
Those knowledgeable in strategy and operations say precision is the bulwark organisations have against inconsistency of application. For the sake of the ANC, whose fortunes are flagging ahead of the 2024 general elections, Ramaphosa does not only need a decisive victory within the party in December; he and those around him need to apply precision to how he wins. Anything less harms the very ANC they’re trying to save.
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