Digital Vibes will not spoil my bid for ANC presidency, says Zweli Mkhize

Former health minister Zweli Mkhize said he is not worried the Digital Vibes scandal will scupper his chances of ousting Cyril Ramaphosa as president of the ANC at the party’s conference in December.

“No I’m not [afraid],” Mkhize told Business Day on Wednesday as he launched his post-nomination presidential campaign in Gauteng.

Mkhize resigned from his post in the government in the wake of the scandal in August 2021 and has been fighting for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report into alleged syphoning of money from the health department to his family and associates to be reviewed.

Should he be charged, Mkhize will be forced to step aside in line with the party’s rules, throwing a spanner in his presidential bid. The ANC’s integrity committee is yet to finalise its reports on the matter.

Ramaphosa won nominations from 2,037 branches across the country, more than double Mkhize’s 916.

Delegates at the December conference vote by secret ballot, and are under no obligation to stick with the nominations of their branches. Delegates are also allowed to support a candidate raised from the conference floor provided that the candidate garners 25% support.

Speaking earlier at the memorial service of anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Bertha Gxowa on Wednesday, Mkhize, who has maintained his innocence in the Digital Vibes matter, urged party members to elect leaders with integrity at the party conference.

The ANC’s top six — president, deputy president, treasurer-general, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general and national chair — are a powerful unit that meets every week to take decisions on everything from governance to organisational matters.

Mkhize also mounted a spirited defence of former president Jacob Zuma, who was this week ordered back to prison, blaming some ANC leaders for being out of touch.

Zuma’s incarceration for ignoring a Constitutional Court order to appear before the then deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo’s state capture commission sparked the July 2021 riots that left 354 people dead and billions looted from shops in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

Mkhize hit out at the government for its handling of the unrest. He said the ANC leadership held a virtual meeting over the unrest instead of relaxing lockdown regulations that would have allowed community leaders to quell the unrest.

Earlier this week the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) overturned the decision by former prisons boss Arthur Fraser to grant Zuma medical parole in September 2021.

The department of correctional services said on Thursday it is appealing the SCA ruling in the Constitutional Court.

“What does it mean to take an eighty year old man and take him back to prison, he said. “Don’t underestimate the pain that people are going through.”

Zuma has received a combined total of 76 nominations for president and national chairperson, making him ineligible to be on the ballot.

He previously endorsed co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for president but she only managed to garner 81 nominations from branches.

Mkhize denied that his defence of Zuma was opportunistic because he is campaigning to lead the ANC.

“I have raised this issue in the past and my stance has never changed,” he said.

maekot@businesslive.co.za