Dirty ANC succession battles have once again come into sharp focus during the inquiries probing criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system.
Both parliament’s ad hoc committee and the judicial commission led by former Constitutional Court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga have heard evidence that police minister Senzo Mchunu allegedly elicited bribes from cartel kingpin Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala to fund his 2027 ANC presidential bid.
In the evidence led so far, the source of this information is Matlala himself. Last week former police minister Bheki Cele told parliament’s ad hoc committee that Matlala told him Mchunu asked Matlala to fund his project to become president of the ANC.
In the Madlanga commission on Thursday a police investigator, dubbed “Witness C” to protect his identity, testified that when Matlala was interviewed informally after his arrest in December, in a bid to “name drop”, Matlala revealed he was helping to fund Mchunu’s presidential bid.
Witness C told the commission Matlala revealed he was close to the minister and an associate, ANC member Brown Mogotsi, who was involved in the CR17 campaign, which saw President Cyril Ramaphosa ascend to the ANC’s top spot.
“There were people, and the minister also, who were going around looking for people who would contribute to his campaign, and indeed Mr Matlala was one of the people who had contributed to the campaign,” Witness C said.
Flashpoint for division
Open factional warfare and hundreds of millions spent in funding, coupled with weak candidates, render the upcoming ANC succession race in 2027 another key flashpoint for division and chaos in the party, which invariably has an impact on the running of the state.
Fight-to-the-death ANC succession battles are of deep concern and an issue party members say is not being adequately addressed. An ANC Tshwane member complained in the party’s weekly newsletter that its national general council (NGC) discussion documents do not adequately wrestle with the challenges accompanying the succession race.
“Amid the many pages on renewal, there is one subject that the movement skirts around, one question that remains dangerously unresolved: how the ANC manages leadership succession,” wrote Godfrey Nkosi.
The party’s NGC, or mid-term policy review conference, will take place in December. It is the first national gathering of ANC leaders and structures since its 17 percentage point decline in electoral support in the 2024 general election.
Silence on reforms
Nkosi noted that the discussion document rightly emphasises party renewal but is silent on reforms to better manage the contentious issue of succession. “Each time succession becomes a battlefield without rules, the state itself suffers,” he wrote.
Similarly, the party’s Northern Cape chair, provincial premier Zamani Saul, penned an opinion piece earlier this year in which he suggested there should be a more rigorous process to select delegates who will go on to elect the ANC’s national leadership at each conference.
He argued that anyone can be a branch-nominated candidate to participate in elections at a national level, irrespective of their motives or their character. While he did not mention bought delegates, he described “lumpen tendencies”, which include when they are bought and paid for, leaving no room for genuine debate or contestation.
“What happens at national conferences is preceded by the shooting, beating, chaos and victimisation of people at sub-national level ... An organisation that coexists and tolerates lumpen behaviour cannot be trusted with the most granular aspects of the revolution,” Saul wrote.
“There is no screening of branch delegates or a system in place to check who these conference delegates really are ... who attends the conference as a delegate matters.”
He urged the ANC to use its upcoming NGC to “urgently review its processes” to hold elective conferences. In the past vested interests among the party’s top leaders have halted such discussions.
A rigorous debate around the messy succession process in the ANC at the NGC will provide an indication of the party’s appetite for genuine internal reform.
• Marrian is a Business Day editor at large.
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