Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane, who was re-elected as ANC provincial chair on Monday, wasted no time in endorsing President Cyril Ramaphosa in his bid for a second term as party president, saying the provincial leadership is “happy” with him.
Mabuyane, a key Ramaphosa ally, whose surname colloquially means “the one who keeps coming back”, was re-elected as ANC provincial boss with 812 votes, fending off his former ally and public works MEC Babalo Madikizela, who received 662.
It was a clean sweep for Mabuyane’s slate as his running mates won all the highly contested positions: deputy chair (Mlungisi Mvoko), secretary (Lulama Ngcukayitobi), deputy secretary (Helen Sauls-August) and treasurer (Zolile Williams).
Mabuyane told the elective conference in East London on Monday afternoon that the ANC cannot afford a high turnover of leadership.
His election adds Eastern Cape to the provinces that support Ramaphosa’s second term ahead of the national elective conference. The others include Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Northern Cape.
The Eastern Cape is crucial to Ramaphosa’s campaign for a second term because it is the ANC’s third-largest province in terms of membership, and it supported Ramaphosa’s successful campaign for the ANC presidency in 2017.
Political commentators described Mabuyane’s re-election as a “major boost” for Ramaphosa’s bid, with some caveats.
“The results are very significant for two reasons: Ramaphosa, as things stand, is going to be a dominant player in the Eastern Cape. However, he cannot ignore the fact that some 600-odd delegates voted for the opposing slate,” said Ongama Mtimka, a political analyst at Nelson Mandela University.
“That should be an indication to the president just how much there is disavowal of his second term, even if the general message is that he has the Eastern Cape [in the bag].”
Political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast said Ramaphosa stands a “good chance of coming back for a second term”.
“Mabuyane’s re-election is a booster for his campaign for a second term. Now he has Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga on his side, and there is no opposition to him in Limpopo, Northern Cape and Western Cape.”
The tight margin of 150 votes by which Mabuyane won the vote highlights the deep divisions in the ANC in the province and reflect the broader strife that has hobbled decision-making and is partly to blame for the slow implementation of reforms aimed at putting the economy on a robust growth path.
In his closing address at the conference on Monday evening, Ramaphosa called for unity.
“You came into this conference divided. Now that you have elected your leaders ... you must unite behind the leadership elected here,” he said. “If we came into the conference divided, being factions, all those differences must now melt away and disappear. The factions must now be collapsed.”
The president called on the newly elected leadership not to “railroad comrades out of positions” because they were on the opposing side. “It must be unity in action. This is how we are going to prove that we are serious about unity and renewal.”
Ramaphosa was elected ANC president in 2017 on a campaign for a new dawn aimed at ridding the ANC of factionalism and corruption, in which the ANC “was accused number one” in corruption, he added in 2020.
He told delegates that his task is to ensure there is principled unity in the organisation.
ANC chair Gwede Mantashe, in his opening address at the conference on Friday, said the party is “arrogant” and “out of touch with society”.
The trust deficit “is an outcome of [ANC] arrogance in dealing with society”.
Ramaphosa ended his speech by calling for the provincial leadership to be at the forefront of efforts to change people’s lives.
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