ANALYSIS | Supra Man: ANC strongman Mahumapelo wins the day in North West

The strongman syndrome reared its ugly head again at the ANC North West provincial elective conference this week.

This became evident as Supra Mahumapelo almost brought the weekend-long conference to its knees when he was not getting his way.

Mahumapelo, since his dethronement as provincial chair when his PEC was disbanded in 2018, has been out in the cold after being downgraded to an ordinary branch member.

But because strongmen don’t go away easily, the weekend gathering was his opportunity to bounce back at a province he governed with near-absolute power, first as provincial secretary and as provincial chairperson during the Zuma years.

It was either him back in charge as provincial chair, or someone he can control to continue wielding influence from behind the scenes.

“Black Jesus”, as Mahumapelo is affectionately known, seized the opportunity and a plan of action was set in place, playing out on two fronts.

On the one side, he had thrown his name into the hat as provincial chair candidate, while on the other, the election process was being contested in court, an increasingly familiar scenario in the wars for control within the ANC.

Mahumapelo drew the first blood in round one, with a litigation “by aggrieved ANC members” seeking to bar the interim provincial committee (IPC) from participating in the conference. He won this round when the court said the IPC members cannot vote, sending the whole conference into overdrive of confusion and chaos just as it was meant to start.

Soon thereafter, talk started about another court case, this time to halt the entire conference, and a legal letter was sent to the ANC detailing the intentions.

With this manoeuvre, Mahumapelo placed himself firmly in charge of events, leaving others scrambling in desperation to save a conference — which had cost the party millions of rand — from total collapse.

Mahumapelo’s hands were not visible to the unsuspecting eye, but the devil is in the detail.

Mahumapelo’s hands were not visible to the unsuspecting eye, but the devil is in the detail.

He blew his cover on his involvement in the second court action, which was conveniently dumped after he reached a deal with the Nono Maloyi faction, when he publicly confirmed that he agreed with what it called for — the illegitimacy of the IPC. 

“There are members of the ANC who are aggrieved, I looked for them and I found them and that is what leadership must do, leadership must not be irritated,” said Mahumapelo.

“I sat with those comrades and asked what is the issue — not that they account to me — and I understood them. They said for the last three years or so we have been saying to the NEC, the interim provincial executive in this province is operating beyond the bounds of the ANC constitution which says when you establish such a structure, it must be there for nine months.

“When I was the provincial chair here and I was the provincial secretary, when our conference was supposed to sit in February, it would do so not in March or three years later or so on. So those comrades were right in terms of the constitution of the ANC.”

Mahumapelo’s multipronged strategy to have influence was also visible when he then abandoned his initial plan to contest for the provincial top job himself. This when he reached a deal with one of the factions, the one that eventually saw Maloyi elected as the new chairperson.

Withdrawing from contesting for the top post himself was a tactical move because Mahumapelo now gets to have the backing of the province in the race for a new national leadership of the ANC.

His name has already featured many times for various positions within the top 6, something he admitted to be happy about on Sunday, while some have said, should he fail to make it there, he should at least become an additional member of the powerful national executive committee (NEC) of the party.

For throwing his weight behind the Maloyi-led PEC, he has a bargaining chip as provinces begin to lobby each other on individual leaders they will support at Nasrec from December 16 to 20 2022.