MAKHUDU SEFARA | ANC paper tigers: the rejected, ejected and dejected

In the wake of the ANC elective conference,  one inescapable conclusion ought to be how those who relied on political spin were left exposed as the paper tigers they are.

Politics, in many ways, is about make-believe. It is, at times, about creating a mirage of victory in the hope that the positive spin generates excitement and attracts the required numbers. But for the trick to work, there needs to be something on which to peg the make-believe. Without a support base, the spin is like a candle in the wind.

For a while, some ANC leaders strutted their stuff, pretending to wield a lot of power, commanding support from would-be delegates. They promised the end of Cyril Ramaphosa’s reign. Former secretary-general Ace Magashule famously said: “It’s just five years, comrades. Five years.” But when South Africans, glued to their television sets, quietly said “cometh the hour, cometh the man”, the candles were blown out.

The conference proved that former president Jacob Zuma is a shadow of his former self. Once a strongman, now a yesterday’s man who relies on staged entrances and poorly conceived court challenges to try to remove Ramaphosa. After announcing his availability for the role of chair, the branches ignored him. It was then claimed Zuma’s name would be raised from the floor at the conference.

When he arrived fashionably late, causing Ramaphosa to stop mid-sentence, this was presumed to be a prelude to his eventual “rise” from the conference floor. It was not to be. The delegates forced him to eat humble pie. Some even sang “Ramaphosa, re tsamaya le wena (we are going with you)” as Zuma left the conference hall, his tail almost between his legs.

Zuma had also thrown his weight behind his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who could not raise sufficient support to be nominated to contest Ramaphosa. When she was nominated from the floor, it was clear she was being set up for humiliation. Smart doctor that she is, she did not take the bait.

But one leader who failed to read the room was perpetual pretender to the throne Lindiwe Sisulu. After failing to qualify to contest Ramaphosa, she believed she could make herself available for the position of treasurer-general. The delegates didn’t think she was worthy of that post either as she failed to meet the minimum threshold to contest.

I have respect for leaders who aim high, even if in the end it’s slim pickings, as was the case for deputy president hopeful Ronald Lamola. Or Pule Mabe, the ANC spokesperson who valiantly fought to become treasurer-general and lost by just more than 150 votes. The result showed there was a basis for believing Mabe could become what he aimed for.

But to fail to make it to the ballot, like Sisulu or Dlamini-Zuma, when you went around pretending you could become president of the ANC, reveals a disturbing asymmetry between their beliefs about themselves and reality. We may never know the pain and humiliation of this sort of rejection by delegates. We can speculate, but that’s pointless.

That it’s not the first time Sisulu failed — and she was not even close to putting up a contest — begs the question: what was the basis of the bravado? Some on social media claim hers was a campaign that lived in her head, sustained only by her family name.

Sisulu is, of course, not anything close to her great father, but she is an activist in her own right. She has struggled to position herself to capture the hearts and minds of ANC delegates for years. Her ill-considered attack on black judges, for example, was an awful attempt at positioning herself as radical. Instead of generating healthy debate about the need for transformation of the judiciary, she was publicly berated for her intemperate language.  

Another leader who couldn’t live up to the hype is Siboniso Duma, ANC chair in KwaZulu-Natal, who proved to be the least strategic of the leaders at Nasrec.

His province brought the most delegates to the conference — but emerged the biggest loser. In 2017, the ANC in KZN supported NDZ and failed to get representation in what was then the top six. Returning to Nasrec this year, Duma said the province must not repeat past mistakes. Yet repeat them they did. The province still has no representation in what is now the top seven. Delegates can truly humble you.

The top seven is not meant to be a repository for provincial representatives. But that’s what KZN, and many other provinces, aimed to do with Zweli Mkhize at the helm. And failed. Stan Mathabatha, ANC provincial chair in Limpopo, attempted to change the province's support for Ramaphosa in the last minutes. Like Duma and Lebogang Maile of Gauteng, he was unhappy with his candidates (including himself) not being accommodated in the top seven.

So Duma and his KZN cohort doggedly kept supporting Zweli Mkhize even when it was clear they would lose.

The one obviously talented leader from KZN, Mdumiseni Ntuli, while failing to become secretary-general, proved he could garner support across the provinces, but he was not supported by his home province. He kept hoping KwaZulu-Natal would come through for him. It didn’t, for reasons that have to do with some squabbles around support for Zuma. So the ANC gets robbed of talent because Duma is narrow and unstrategic.

The one thing the losers from this ANC conference prove is that we must not be deceived by paper tigers who create a veneer of support where none exists.