Sello Theletsane
From former president Jacob Zuma’s point of view, having the first female ANC president is a matter of principle, it is not personal as many would like to believe.
Accordingly, it is for that reason that he maintains that in order for the ANC to break a cycle of patriarchy and chauvinism, the movement ought to be led by strong women. To substantiate his premise, he is of the view that the ANC does have strong women to lead it, citing Lindiwe Sisulu and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma. Their political track record and credentials are unmatched by any contesting men for the position of the ANC president.
They have political credibility and government experience than any contenders, including the incumbent president and his deputy. The problem with the ANC is the deep-seated hatred for strong female leaders. A clear illustration is the ongoing alienation of women in all the floating slates, making it a point that they don’t feature in the presidency at all costs, yet we see seriously compromised male candidates making the grades.
Interestingly enough, two names from one small province, Paul Mashatile and Nomvula Mokonyane, have a consistent appearance in almost all the slates from factional divides. It is also the two of them who deal with the ANC membership and logistics of the conferences as they both work in Luthuli House.
Their appearance on all these circulating slates has nothing to do with their leadership capabilities, but everything to do with the abuse of Luthuli House offices and the head office infrastructure. They are both desperate to be in the top six and it is not clear what they want to do with these top six positions.
One thing is clear from their rhythm to squeeze out other potential candidates from other provinces. They do this with bad leadership reputations. For example, nobody knows where Mokonyane stands with Zondo Commissions recommendations on the state capture. Equally there is a lot that is not clear about Mashatile’s credibility. They are both conflicted in the lead-up process towards the national elective conference in December, yet the ANC allows them to be both referees and players.
How does this happen?
It happens because today we see provinces that clumsily impose leaders on the branches without the mandate of the branches. Others opt for lies and claims of having overwhelming and unambiguous support of the branches to elect certain leaders, especially men at the expense of capable women, while on the contrary 80% of the branch general meetings haven’t sat for genuine nominations. It’s called putting the wagon before the horse.
The question then arises: What gives these provincial leaders the right to pronounce on behalf of the branches? What causes this amateurish foreign conduct in these provinces? This bad trend is a consequence of business people who masquerade as political leaders.
When the time arrives for these pronouncements, provincial leaders end up committing fatally naive errors, with their provinces doing irrational and unjustifiable choices. They recklessly and myopically do this without thinking properly about the ANC’s fighting chances in the 2024 general elections. For some reason, they mistakenly believe that discredited leaders will win them the 2024 elections. Where is the thinking cap from these provincial barons? Can’t they create space for credible leaders, especially female leaders for once in their lifetime and for the sake of history and fight patriarchy?
This is what makes former president Zuma to continue to believe firmly in strong female candidates, this despite the fact that many mistakenly believe that when he makes this point he is referring to his ex-wife, Dlamini Zuma. He is not only referring to Dlamini Zuma, as he recognises other leaders such as Sisulu.
In fact, it has come to the attention of “The Star” that Dlamini Zuma and Sisulu's teams had preliminary informal discussions in Gauteng last week, immediately after the Cosatu conference, teasing out potential synergistic principles, areas of collaboration, examining the alienation of women from presidency positions and agreeing that if at all they decide to work together, the issue of who becomes the president and who becomes the deputy president must and should be left to the democratic outcome of all the branch general meetings in order to formulate a slate that has a long-term view of the 2024 elections in mind, with a candidate that won’t be exposed to constant parliamentary and media attacks due to corruption allegations post the 2024 elections.
This is a view to regain the lost ANC dignity in the House due to the bad leadership election choices made. The ANC’s image and reputation get tainted in Parliament on a daily basis. The Phala Phala and Bosasa scandals are cases in point.
These preliminary talks between the two stables were highly confidential, with a strict emphasis on not finalising anything at this stage but putting the interests of the organisation and its members ahead of everyone and everything.
It is not clear whether Sisulu’s pending meeting with the former president will discuss this imperative and significant issue of fusing the two campaigns to win outright the entire women vote in the ANC towards the December conference and deepen their support in provinces such as KZN, where divisions are glaringly visible.
One thing is clear, though, and that is that the effort to have a formidable, strong contender for 2024 cannot be taken lightly. The growing consensus is that the opposition can only be defeated by a credible female candidate, not by any of the illogically proposed males by some provinces. This is interesting because it may end up being a contest between female ANC leaders versus male ANC leaders come the December 2022 conference before those crucial 2024 general elections.
Both the Sisulu and Dlamini Zuma stables have confirmed the meeting which was held in Gauteng just after the Cosatu conference, and it is alleged that the meeting was facilitated by influential labour federations.
There are some labour federations that have a dim view of the Cyril Ramaphosa-led ANC, such that they have vehemently stated that they won’t endorse him as the labour federation candidate and this is due not only to the Phala Phala scandal but also to the historic lack of fringe benefits which includes salary increments, citing the fact that a new ANC leader will have to come from these two women (Sisulu or Dlamini Zuma).
To quote one of the labour federation leaders who attended and facilitated the meeting of these two stables: “We are in a process of sense-making, with the greatest intention of saving the ANC and taking it back to the people, where it belongs.”
The leader added: “The ANC is strangled by leaders with wrong motives, and they succeed because they have money to erode values of the movement instead of uplifting our communities.
“They erode the ethos of the ANC with their money, literally killing the ANC and in the process take advantage of young vulnerable leaders whom we are supposed to groom properly. As such, those young leaders end up making fools of themselves on national TV because they lead with money full in their pockets,” entrenching idiosyncratic tendencies.
Any leader who cannot think and use his or her brain will use money to get his way and they always target the young lions, who are always willing to be used due to poverty and love for money. It is no longer about servant leadership, it’s about what it is in it for me, hence the degeneration of the movement when it comes to the leadership question in the ANC. In line with this is the increasing level of arrogance from some of the young leaders, with no credible intellectual contribution to any debate from them so far.
A painful observation is that some of these newly elected young provincial leaders are brave enough to go on national TV to make replete explanations on Eskom with poor grasp of the scientific nomenclature. They abuse ANC platforms and airtime to “peddle unscientific fringe theories”.
Repetitions of scientifically erroneous analysis of what the society expects from the ANC, with such insensitive arrogance with regard to gender parity is also indicative of the poor grasp on how the ANC reimagines itself in the future by these young leaders.
In fact there is an emerging view that some of these provincial leaders are still immature for the positions they hold. This brings into question the debate of quality leadership which the ANC can offer to South Africans. As things stand, their love for money is going to be their downfall. They are allergic to books, with a strong inclination to easy money.
The question remains whether the former president will succeed in his efforts to deliver the first female president, and only time will tell because he can’t do that and succeed alone. The thinking of the ANC Women’s League and women of this country will have to raise their hands and be counted as they form a majority in our society. In fact some members of ANCWL behave in the very same manner with these young leaders, as they too are easily bought as women to suppress each other.
The time is now because they can’t say they don’t have credible options to field as women. The ball is in their court to assist in rewriting the history of the ANC and that of the country.
An interesting question remains: Was the KZN ANC provincial leadership genuine when they sought wisdom from the former president at Nkandla or there to spy on his thinking and options towards the national conference?
*Sello Theletsane is a journalist.