JANUARY 8 STATEMENT
Anti-Zuma bloc has upper hand on paper
Factions are likely to jockey for position on specific issues — the SABC or SARS — and will not deliver any knock-out blows, writes Steven Friedman
Now we know who is winning the battle to decide what the ANC says. But it is not clear who is deciding what it does. It is easy to dismiss the ANC January 8 statement of 2017 as a rehash of things it has said before. But it becomes much more interesting and important if we look at it as a way of measuring how the ANC’s factional battle is shaping up. This annual statement of ANC intentions is always read by the president of the ANC, but the president is merely the messenger. It is issued by the national executive committee, which runs the organisation between conferences. So it is a measure of who is winning and losing arguments among the ANC leadership. This is particularly important since the leaders are divided into two factions: the patronage politicians who want to get their hands on the public purse and those who seek to block them. Their battle will decide not only who will lead the ANC after December’s conference, but what sort of organisation it will be. The statement gives...
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