SUCCESSION RACE
NATASHA MARRIAN: Six contenders; five months; 5,000 votes
‘None has a real chance of winning the succession race, although Sisulu and Mbete could be seen as options in a slate that wishes to bolster its gender quota’
There are now six candidates contesting the ANC presidency, but it is critical to separate the wheat from the chaff. With all the inherent complexity in the ANC’s succession politics in 2017, the battle will still boil down to numbers: who has the largest constituency and the most branches backing his or her presidential bid.
It then becomes easy to see that Jeff Radebe, Lindiwe Sisulu, Mathews Phosa and Baleka Mbete are simply distractions in the broader scheme of things.
None boasts a clear constituency or could muster the branch support required to win a party election. Sisulu’s campaign slogan, "It’s a must", could very well have disqualified her from the race for all its pompous pretence.
None has a real chance of winning the succession race, although Sisulu and Mbete could be seen as options in a slate that wishes to bolster its gender quota. The two major players remain Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa. However, structures in the party have become acutely aware of the "abnormality" of the way in which processes are unfolding. For instance, in defiance of a national executive committee directive in January to hold off on succession talk, that same week, the ANC Women’s League named Dlamini-Zuma as its candidate. Then, one by one, candidates voiced their "readiness" to lead.The policy conference was another indication of the power plays and balance of forces in the party: Dlamini-Zuma’s faction hobbled and battling to assert its authority on key issues. Songs and debates in the conference showed that "hard factions" had already formed. It is astounding that an organisation as inward-looking as the ANC needed that conference to illustrate the extent of the d...
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