Ace Magashule ready to stand for ANC ‘today, tomorrow and any other day’

“Once I am nominated ... nobody can stop me.”

There are the words of suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, who said he will be nominated and elected during the party’s 55th national elective conference in December.

Magashule was addressing media outside the Bloemfontein high court at the weekend. He said despite his suspension, the ANC “is the movement of the people” and he will “be there”. 

“I joined the ANC voluntarily. I was there in the struggle. It’s not a monopoly of any individual. The ANC is the movement of the people. I’m there, my brother. I will be there today and tomorrow and any other day.”

Magashule joins a growing list of candidates running in the ANC’s 2022 presidential race, including the following people:

• Deputy president David Mabuza;
• co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma;
• treasurer-general Paul Mashatile;
• tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu; and
• former treasurer-general Mathews Phosa. 

Magashule was suspended by the governing party in 2021 after his refusal to willingly step aside following corruption charges brought against him relating to a multimillion-rand Free State asbestos eradication tender awarded during his tenure as premier.

He said the corruption case he was facing was a tactic to prevent him contesting ANC positions in December. 

The case has been postponed to January 20 2023. 

“They keep postponing the case quite deliberately because the intention is to kill the ANC. I am saying to members of the ANC throughout the country, do not allow the ANC to be killed,” said Magashule.

ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said last week that those affected by the step-aside rule would not be eligible to contest any position, even if the party’s national conference in December repealed the rule. 

Mabe said should such a decision be taken, it would only be effective after the conference.

He said resolutions of the conference were not retrospective, and if the step-aside rule were repealed, it would take effect in the next conference.

“If you take a resolution in a conference, its application only happens in the next conference. If you resolve we are discarding the step-aside rule because either we believe it is not being implemented consistently or whatever view might hold, it means the application of that resolution will only be at the next national conference because we resolved on step aside at the 54th national conference.

“When did we apply it? As soon as we left the conference — because if we applied it at the conference, it meant we would have had to call any cadre who was in court at the time and ask them to step aside. We didn’t do that because we apply resolutions afterwards.”

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