Ace Magashule has for 15 years been a larger-than-life figure in ANC politics. In 2007, he played a leading role in the campaign to unseat Thabo Mbeki and install Jacob Zuma as ANC leader.
When Kgalema Motlanthe challenged Zuma for the top post at the ANC’s conference in 2012, Magashule again played a stellar role in a thumping victory for Zuma.
He then he emerged as a leading figure in the radical economic transformation (RET) faction, seeking first to elect Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma at the ANC’s conference in 2017 and later Zweli Mkhize in 2022, where he campaigned on the sidelines after his suspension the year before.
It would be impossible to tell the story of the ANC palace politics of the past two decades without mentioning Magashule.
In the lead-up to ANC’s 2017 elective conference, the RET faction in the party, spearheaded by Zuma, was supposed to walk over the Cyril Ramaphosa slate.
Things did not quite work out, though. Ramaphosa emerged victorious. But all was not lost for the faction as Magashule secured the powerful position of ANC secretary-general, or in business speak, the CEO of the organisation.
Emboldened by his victory, Magashule’s first stop was Zuma’s stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal. There he put Ramaphosa on notice in his “It’s a matter of five years” speech — suggesting that Ramaphosa will be a one-term president.
Unfazed, Ramaphosa led the charge against Zuma, which saw him recalled as SA’s president in February 2018.
Magashule would continue to pledge his loyalty to Zuma, setting the tone for a frosty relationship with Ramaphosa in the following years.
Five years later, Magashule’s storied political career in ANC — as a provincial chair, an MEC, a premier and reaching a high water mark in 2017 when he was elected to the powerful position of secretary-general — is hanging by a thread after the party’s disciplinary committee recommended his expulsion.
The party, fighting to stay in the majority in next year’s general election gave the Parys-born politician seven days on Wednesday to make representations as to why he should not be shown the door for refusing to tender an apology to Ramaphosa for “suspending” him in 2021.
He did this in retaliation of his own suspension by Luthuli House after he was charged with corruption by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in November 2020 over the R255m asbestos contract that was awarded to businessman Edwin Sodi, when Magashule was Free State premier.
ANC leaders like Gwede Mantashe called Magashule out for his “suspension” of Ramaphosa, calling the move unprecedented.
Magashule insisted, however, that he was within his rights to suspended Ramaphosa on allegations that he had “bought” the 2017 conference.
At its meeting in May 2021, the ANC’s highest decision-making structure between conferences, the national executive committee (NEC), confirmed the suspension of Magashule and said his suspension of Ramaphosa was invalid.
The NEC also said Magashule’s move to suspend Ramaphosa as ANC president was in violation of the party’s constitution and instructed him to “withdraw and apologise”, failing which disciplinary steps would be taken against him.
Magashule’s then deputy, Jessie Duarte, wrote him a letter, calling on him to publicly withdraw Ramaphosa’s suspension letter and apologise.
Magashule retorted with a letter stating his rights had been violated and that he would not apologise.
He would later approach the courts to set aside his suspension and confirm that of Ramaphosa. The South Gauteng High Court denied his request.
His suspension, which precluded him from participating and contesting for any position at the ANC’s 2022 elective conference, significantly weakened the RET. Ramaphosa would go on to win a second term with a bigger margin.
The preceding period of the ANC’s December 2022 conference also saw another key RET foot soldier, Carl Niehaus, expelled for breaching party discipline.
Magashule becomes the first former official of the ANC to face expulsion in recent history. However, the ANC has not been shy in the past to expel its senior members.
Julius Malema was shown the door in 2012, ironically by a panel headed by Ramaphosa.
The basis of his expulsion was that he had sown discord in the party by unfavourably comparing the leadership style of Zuma to that of former president Thabo Mbeki. He was also dismissed for remarks on bringing about regime change in Botswana.
Malema would go on to establish the EFF, which has grown to be the country’s third-largest party.
Years before Malema, who was at the time of his expulsion the ANC Youth League president, the ANC had expelled Bantu Homolisa, who is now leader of the UDM.
Holomisa was kicked to the kerb in 1996 for bringing the party into disrepute by a remark to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that public enterprises minister Stella Sigcau accepted a R50,000 payment from former Transkei ruler Chief George Matanzima.
If Magashule’s expulsion is confirmed, it will be a stunning reversal in fortunes for a man who was at one point the ANC’s longest-serving provincial chair. He also served 10 years as Free State premier.
He will find little joy in his home province, where Ramaphosa ally Mxolisi Dukwana is both the ANC chair and premier. The two men are fierce rivals, with Magashule having fired Dukwana as MEC in 2012 — an act Dukwana has never forgiven.
His imminent expulsion will also be the final nail in the coffin of the once formidable RET faction. With limited options, speculation is rife that Magashule might start his own political party and contest next year’s watershed general election.
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