When the ANC’s treasurer general and deputy presidential nominee Paul Mashatile left the plenary hall at the end of the nominations session just after 2am on Sunday morning, delegates stopped him to greet, talk and take selfies.
The nomination session, which took over two hours to complete and which was open to the media, was an early test of strength for the two camps in the party ahead of Sunday’s election of the top seven leaders by the party.
Mashatile’s would-be contender, water & sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu, walked out alone a few metres ahead of Mashatile. Nobody stopped him to shake a hand. Five years ago in that same hall, Mchunu was so popular that he lost out the secretary-general position to Ace Magashule by a dozen or so highly contested votes.
The plenary hall was packed despite the late hour, the fullest it would be for the entire five days of the national elective conference (NEC). All the delegates wanted to be there to ensure that the threshold of 1,109 hands (25%) is reached to nominate their chosen candidate.
Mchunu wasn’t nominated ahead of time by the branches despite being Ramaphosa’s choice for deputy, and his name wasn’t raised from the conference floor either as he privately indicated earlier that day that he would not run.
Mashatile’s name, in contrast, was greeted with the loudest cheers when it was read for contention on the ballot. Leaders from both camps distrust him, but he’s cosied up to former health minister Zweli Mkhize much more than to Ramaphosa, whose campaign caucus say they are resigned to the possibility of a Mashatile deputy presidency.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in 2017 and who had initially raised her hand to contest him again, declined nomination from the floor.
Cutting a forlon figure on stage, the minister of cooperative governance & traditional affairs, who has been on the national executive committee’s bad books after she voted “yes” to impeach Ramaphosa, declined nomination. The NEC had directed all MPs to vote “no”.
The party initially wanted to charge her, but later decided against it.
Deputy President David Mabuza also declined a nomination from the floor for his current position and left soon after. Mashatile moved to sit right next to Ramaphosa on the stage.
When asked how he thinks the conference is going, Mashatile replied, “The good thing is that we’ve adopted credentials, we adopted the rules of conference, we presented the organisational report, the financial report, we presented strategy and tactics, renewal, all the policy documents, so tomorrow it will be easy to go ahead with commissions. So, we go to vote whilst we are working.”
Mashatile, who would have had responsibility as acting secretary-general for organising the conference, said he expected the delays caused by the accreditation process to have been longer. Machines broke down and there were disputes, such as someone taking off with all the tags from the Free State, meaning the registration process only finished at 3.30pm on Saturday afternoon.
“What we did was to ensure that we tighten the processes,” he said.
A whiff of alcohol
Elsewhere in the hall, former energy minister and ANC NEC member Tina Joemat-Pettersson expressed surprise to her colleagues at her nomination from the floor as first deputy secretary-general to contest former water & sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane.
As possible nominees declined the position one by one, it looked like Mokonyane would be elected uncontested. Febe Potgieter-Gqubule, the Ramaphosa camp’s choice, indicated to the EleXions Agency about 11am on Saturday morning that she would not be available despite being nominated by the branches. It’s not the first time that she’s pulled out of the race at the last minute.
Vuyiswa Tulelo, SA’s ambassador to Vietnam, declined nomination from the floor, while Gwen Ramokgopa, declined in favour of a nomination as party treasurer-general.
Joemat-Pettersson was a last-minute nomination, strategically done, a delegate says, by deputy presidential nominee and former Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane to get the support of the Northern Cape and Western Cape.
Ramaphosa’s second term could end up being an uncomfortable balancing act, just as his first.
Mokonyane’s supporters, concentrated in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng from the anti-Ramaphosa camp, very loudly shouted their displeasure at the chair of the ANC’s elections committee, Kgalema Motlanthe. They looked tired, and there was an occasional whiff of alcohol about the microphone where they gathered to speak.
The newly created second deputy secretary-general position also saw some surprise nominations. After Maropene Ramokgopa, presidential adviser on international relations, was nominated from the floor, her nomination was countered by a candidate favoured by the anti-Ramaphosa faction, Ronaldo Nalumango, who is on the Western Cape’s interim provincial committee.
Gwen Ramokgopa was nominated as treasurer-general from the floor onto a ballot already crowded with three other names.
Tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu didn’t get enough hands to be nominated as the fifth candidate for the position.
It was historic to have four candidates making it to the ballot paper after nominations from the floor. The only other time this nearly happened was in 1997, when Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was nominated. She declined only after she realised she would not make the 25% support threshold.
Which camp appears to be the strongest? Both camps performed strongly in the plenary, though those supporting Mkhize were the loudest and the most disruptive.
But those supporting the Ramaphosa camp were spread across a number of provinces, and the fact that Ramaphosa’s preferred candidate for treasurer-general, Gwen Ramokgopa, eventually made it onto the ballot showed that his campaigners made a few inroads.
Ramaphosa’s camp is left with one major weakness: failing to consolidate support for one candidate in the positions for deputy president, secretary-general, national chairperson and treasurer-general.
If this isn’t clarified by 9am on Sunday morning, when voting is due to start, their votes could be split and Ramaphosa’s second term could end up being an uncomfortable balancing act, just as his first.
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