The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal is not under Jacob Zuma's thumb and has been able to insulate itself from the Zuma phenomenon.
That is according to newly elected provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli, who told the Sunday Times his rise to power, by defeating a candidate said to have had Zuma's support, was proof that the former president had no influence over the ANC in the province.
Ntuli ousted Super Zuma, an ally of the former president, at the ANC's provincial conference.
Ntuli said he was aware of talk that he did not have Zuma's blessing, but he still won."Many people were saying I will not stand as provincial secretary because I am not a Zuma, and I'm standing against a Zuma who has the support of the former president. There were theories that I will be told to decline nomination because JZ does not support my name," said Ntuli.
The perception that Zuma had a hold over the KwaZulu-Natal leadership was based on speculation, he said.
"I haven't heard anyone who is able to provide an explanation why they believe we are incapable of taking decisions and directing the organisation outside what may be the influence or the interests of the former president. JZ is not in any way involved in the affairs of the province. There has not even been a point where we have been consulting him on any issue we had to deal with."
According to Ntuli, the decision to try to persuade Luthuli House, the ANC's headquarters, to allow party members in the province to support Zuma during his corruption trial was not based on Zuma having authority over party leaders."Under certain conditions the NEC [national executive committee] made a decision, correctly so, that no one must go to court on behalf of the organisation, but we are the only province with a former president who is not only in court because of new cases, but old cases that the movement has taken various decisions on. The case has not changed but the ANC has taken more than three decisions on the same case," he said.
Ntuli and provincial chairman Sihle Zikalala will talk to party president Cyril Ramaphosa and secretary-general Ace Magashule on the matter on the sidelines of the next NEC meeting.
Although only three MECs made it onto the new provincial executive committee, Ntuli said changes to the provincial government would be irrational. "We should be doing a reshuffle only if it is time for a new MEC to turn things around in departments where we would have identified weaknesses.
"A change in government at the moment would not be informed by principle and the consideration of what needs to be done; it can only be attitudinal and the PEC does not have that attitude. We learnt that lesson in the past."Ntuli said party members' capabilities did not diminish if they were not elected to the PEC. "There are good comrades who did not make it to the PEC, some of them who are more capable than us in the PEC to lead a department in government."
He attributed the ANC's declining performance in the province, specifically at by-elections, to internal problems of disunity, which he believed had been solved with the election of a new leadership...