Cabinet ministers Lindiwe Sisulu, Mmamoloko Kubayi, Senzo Mchunu and Enoch Godongwana were among some big names who failed to muster enough support for nominations to the ANC’s top six positions.
On Tuesday, the party released names elected by its 4,000 branches to contest national leadership positions at its conference in December.
The top six positions consisting of the ANC president, deputy president and treasurer-general, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general and national chair, are a powerful unit in the party that meets every week to take decisions on everything from governance to organisational matters.
They lead the 20-member national working committee (NWC), which overlooks the day-to-day running of the party.
Those elected in December will have the onerous task of renewing the party and readying it for the 2024 general elections. SA’s governing party has lost a huge amount of support in successive elections, and this has put the party on track to lose its majority in the 2022 provincial poll.
Also snubbed by the branches was senior cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who had raised her hand to contest the party president position. In 2017, she narrowly lost to President Cyril Ramaphosa for the same position.
Deputy president David Mabuza did not also make the cut as the party considered only the top three for any position.
But it is not the end of the road for the ministers as the party’s constitution allows them to be on the conference ballot paper if they get 25% support from the conference floor at the December 16 meeting.
Sisulu, who is responsible for tourism in Ramaphosa’s executive, was contesting for ANC president while human settlements minister Kubayi and Mchunu, the water and sanitation minister, had put their hand up for the party’s deputy president position.
The ANC’s electoral commission announced on Tuesday that Ramaphosa got the overwhelming majority of nominations, making him a shoo-in for re-election at the party’s internal leadership conference in December.
Ramaphosa, who was elected to lead the ANC on a reform ticket in 2017, when former president Jacob Zuma was ousted from the party’s leadership, won eight out of nine provincial nominations, with former health minister Zweli Mkhize coming in second.
Mkhize won a big majority from branches in KwaZulu-Natal to obtain a provincial nomination to run against Ramaphosa for ANC president.
Ramaphosa was nominated by 2,037 branches compared with Mkhize’s 916. “These are the two names nominated for president,” ANC electoral commission head Kgalema Motlanthe said.
For the deputy president position, candidates who made the ballot include ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile with 1,791 nominations, compared with justice minister Ronald Lamola’s 427 and Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane’s 397.
Limpopo premier Stanley Mathabatha is now the front-runner to become the ANC’s national chair with 1,492 nominations, against mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s 979 and deputy finance minister David Masondo’s 501.
For ANC secretary-general, the party’s former KwaZulu-Natal secretary, Mdumiseni Ntuli, got 1,225 nominations compared with deputy public enterprises minister Phumulo Masualle’s 889 and transport minister Fikile Mbalula’s 749.
Ramaphosa’s adviser, Benjamin Chauke, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe and the party’s Ekurhuleni chair, Mzwandile Masina, also obtained sufficient nominations to be on the ballot.
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