ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe has thrown his hat into the party’s internal leadership contest, saying he is available to be re-elected in the position at the ANC elective conference in December.
Should he succeed, Mantashe, who is also mineral resources and energy minister, would have been part of the ANC’s top six for 20 years, having previously served as the party’s secretary-general from 2007 to 2017 under former president Jacob Zuma.
Mantashe, a former trade unionist who has been at the centre of the battle over SA’s energy future since he became a minister in 2018, has broken with ANC tradition in making himself available for nomination before the party’s December elective conference. The party usually allows branches to lead the succession process.
But he told Business Day in an interview that though he is two years younger than President Cyril Ramaphosa, he decided not to contest the presidency post.
Mantashe is seen as a key Ramaphosa ally, and his supporters were lobbying for him to take the ANC deputy presidency earlier this year.
With the succession race hotting up in the run-up to December, Mantashe did not reveal in the interview which provinces are backing his campaign to retain the chair. He is believed to have strong support in the Eastern Cape where his ally Oscar Mabuyane was recently re-elected as ANC chair for the province.
Mantashe’s campaign comes while the country is confronting an energy crisis in which Eskom escalated load-shedding to stage 6 after bruising industrial action by workers who went on strike demanding inflation-beating wage increases.
As energy minister, Mantashe has faced pressure from business and from civil society organisations to remove hurdles to bringing new private power generation onto the grid, and issue ministerial determinations for outstanding battery storage as well as renewable energy as set out in the Integrated Resources Plan published by the government in 2019.
Mantashe was also fingered in the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture for having received security upgrades to his home from corruption-accused Bosasa during his time as ANC secretary-general. Bosasa received state contracts. The commission has referred evidence regarding Mantashe to law enforcement agencies for further investigation.
Mantashe has dismissed claims that his re-election bid will cast a shadow over Ramaphosa, who seeks a second term as party president and has staked his tenure on an anticorruption campaign.
“The terms of reference [of the state capture commission] don’t cover me ... the commission should’ve stopped there ... they couldn’t find any prima facie case against me and therefore I am taking it on review,” he said.
New rules
Mantashe’s bid for re-election comes after ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile introduced new rules for the party’s leadership contest, including that funders of campaigns should be declared, and that T-shirts with faces, slogans or names of individual campaigns should be prohibited.
The ANC’s new campaign regulations, which were released to provinces last week, also prohibit national executive committee (NEC) members from campaigning as part of an organised group or faction with the aim of garnering votes for a predetermined slate.
ANC branches are expected to officially pronounce on their preferred candidates in August in line with an NEC timeline for the national conference.
Mantashe potentially faces stiff competition from Limpopo provincial chair Stan Mathabatha, who is also eyeing the position now held by Mantashe, according to various ANC Limpopo leaders.
Mathabatha is said to be working closely with Mashatile, who is one of the contenders for deputy president, with justice minister Ronald Lamola and human settlements minister Mmamoloko Kubayi.
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