Durban - ANC presidential hopefuls Zweli Mkhize and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma have seemingly begun their campaigns for the ANC presidency ahead of the party’s elective conference in December.
Dlamini Zuma was set to be officially endorsed in Durban on Sunday, after pleading with branch leaders to support her.
Her branch, ward 32 in central Durban, snubbed her in 2017 in favour of Cyril Ramaphosa.
Dlamini Zuma is planning to go head to head with Ramaphosa again in December, when the ANC holds its 55th conference at which the president of the party will be elected. The ANC’s General Sihle Mbongwa branch, in Durban central has agreed to Dlamini Zuma’s request.
The branch members were disgruntled with Dlamini Zuma in 2017 because she had failed to intervene in a dispute over the authenticity over the ward councillor at the time. Branch members felt that councillor Mpumelelo Zuma had been imposed on them and punished Dlamini Zuma at conference.
However, he was replaced by Protas Mngonyama in 2021 and members are now happy. A branch insider said the issue of the councillor was no longer a problem and Dlamini Zuma was their preferred presidential candidate.
Dlamini Zuma also got the backing of former president Jacob Zuma, who reportedly told a delegation of ANC NEC members to support her. “As you know, NDZ is a member of our branch and will be in attendance on Sunday for the (branch general meeting),” the branch insider said. “Initially, we had not supported her because the people who were harassing our branch in the eThekwini region were people that were supporting her at the time.
We were fighting them over a councillor who had been imposed on us as a ward.” At the time, the branch asked her to intervene in the matter, but she failed to, so the branch leaders told her they would not be able to support her when she was working with people who were causing trouble for them in the branch.
“This time around, she has engaged us and said let us put all differences aside because the issue around the councillor was sorted and the right councillor was installed. She asked for the support of the branch, and we have agreed. “There is nothing else we can do. We don’t have anything to lose in backing uMama (Dlamini Zuma) against Ramaphosa.
We backed Ramaphosa in 2017 and how has that assisted (us) as a branch?” Attempts to get comment from Dlamini Zuma were unsuccessful at the time of publication.
Zweli Mkhize has also thrown his hat into the ring to be the party’s next president. Mkhize, who is implicated in a corruption scandal, was critical of the leadership of the ANC when he addressed party members at the Victoria Mxenge Memorial Lecture, in Mayville, Durban, this week. While the gathering was meant to be a lecture on Mxenge, speakers used the opportunity to lobby for Mkhize to lead the ANC.
Guest speakers from the ANC’s youth and women’s leagues, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Veterans Association, and the SA National Civic Organisation pledged their support for Mkhize.
Taking to the podium, Mkhize, referring to the 2021 local government election results in which the ANC performed dismally, said the political ground of the ANC and society at large had shifted gradually.
“The current ANC leadership came to power on the back of a promise to deliver a good governance and anti-corruption programme, both of which, we were told, would enable the state to deliver the social goods so sorely needed by our people – education, health, safety, and jobs.”
Not only had the leadership failed to deliver these, but its “good governance and anti-corruption” programme had allegedly been exposed as a cynical fraud aimed at purging potential political opponents and fracturing the ANC to the point where it would become a non-entity in South African politics.
“This leadership suffers from the illusion that a factional “good governance and anti-corruption” project can be a substitute for political direction and clarity. “Its reliance on these empty slogans has been central to its failure to unite the ANC and restore its umbilical bond with the people,” he said.
Mkhize said factionalism had deepened within the ANC to the point where it had continued throughout the five-year term. He said the people who belonged to a particular faction in 2017 were still given the same label, which made it hard to forge unity.
Mkhize said the upcoming conference represented the last significant opportunity to save the movement from “this counter-revolutionary project”. Mkhize said he had been in touch with Zuma, but they had not discussed the campaign.
“We discuss issues of how to assist the ANC as elders,” he said of the rumours Zuma had endorsed Dlamini Zuma for the presidency.
Mkhize’s tenure as health minister was cut short after claims he was involved in the R150 million contract awarded to Digital Vibes, a company believed to be linked to his long-time friend.
While he has not been charged with fraud and corruption, Mkhize said he was optimistic nothing would stand in his way when he ran for the presidency. He said the parliamentary ethics committee had cleared him in respect of some of the issues relating to the tender. He also said some of the procurement issues were cleared by the internal disciplinary process, adding that the investigation had lasted for almost 19 months.
He said the aim was to have the report set aside. Others whose names have cropped up for the presidency include Deputy President David Mabuza, Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Sisulu, and Paul Mashatile, the ANC’s treasurer-general and acting secretary-general.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE