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Home , Baleka Mbete, Cyril Ramaphosa, Jacob Zuma, Jeff Radebe, Kgalema Motlanthe, Lindiwe Sisulu

12 20 July 2017

Leadership in : Who Will be the Next President of the ANC?

Leighton G. Luke Research Manager Indian Ocean Research Programme

Key Points

 In the late Zuma era, the African National Congress is riven by factionalism and internal discord. The party has lost the confidence of an

unprecedented number of voters.

 For as long as the ANC can command an electoral majority, its leader will

also become the and .

 The two current frontrunners are Deputy President and former Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. While they are both very accomplished, neither has a perfect track record and each has failings or perceived weaknesses.

 Whoever is chosen to be party leader at the next ANC Elective Conference in December will need leadership skills of the highest order if the party is to recover its lost standing.

Summary

As President nears the end of his second and final term as president of South Africa, the party that he also leads, the African National Congress, is at an all-time low, riven by factionalism, internal discord and a previously unimaginable loss of voter support. Much of that decline has been the culmination of a lengthy process and highlights the difficulties inherent in the change from opposition movement to government. While the blame for the

rot within the ANC cannot entirely be laid at Zuma’s door, it unquestionably accelerated under his administration. Who, then, will replace Zuma to lead what was the continent’s leading liberation movement from the wilderness in which it finds itself? Who will replace a party leader memorably described as a ‘constitutional delinquent’?

Analysis

Assuming that he has not been pushed aside or fallen on his sword before then, ANC delegates will gather for an Elective Conference in province from 16-20 December 2017 to select Zuma’s successor as party leader. Zuma has already stated that he will not stand again as ANC leader. Technically, he could though, because, unlike the President of South Africa, the office of party president does not have prescribed term limits. The convention is, however, that upon assuming the role of party president, the new ANC leader also effectively becomes the party’s candidate for President of South Africa. Following a general election, the President is elected in a secret vote by the Members of the lower House of Parliament, the National Assembly.

As the majority party in Parliament, the ANC is thus effectively guaranteed that its leader will be the President of South Africa. Under the Constitution, the President is the head of state, the head of government and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. To be president of the governing party is, therefore, to be president of the country. For as long as the ANC can command an electoral majority, its leader is able to shape South Africa to a massive degree. Thus, the character of the person selected to be ANC leader assumes even greater importance. Any personal or policy errors that he or she may make can have outsize ramifications, thus the failings of the Zuma Administration are amplified.

For the ANC, the question is increasingly becoming one of will Zuma – once replaced as ANC leader in December – stay on as President of South Africa until his term ends at the 2019 general election? Or will he stand aside to make way for an interim president and for the party to benefit from his absence in the lead up to 2019? It would no doubt be tempting for Zuma to remain at the helm but, if the many accusations of patronage and that have been levelled against him are correct, then, barring his imprisonment, he would presumably be able to live very comfortably as a former president, perhaps exercising a significant degree of influence behind the scenes, quite possibly while enjoying additional income over and above his official pension. Zuma will, in all probability, choose to stand down as President soon after the Elective Conference. The odds of him relinquishing the presidency will be even greater if his replacement is someone who is sympathetic to his cause. Zuma’s suggestion – put forward at the party’s 30 June-5 July national policy conference – that the losing candidate in December should automatically become national deputy president, is best seen in that light. Simply put, it is another way of ensuring that someone sympathetic to him at least gets close enough to power to exert some favourable influence. More crudely, it could aid in circumventing a president who was not well disposed towards him.

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For 75-year old Zuma, the weight of the scandals and allegations piling up against him continues to grow and the next challenge for him to overcome will be a no confidence motion in Parliament on 8 August, brought against him by the Opposition parties. In what will also be a test of her loyalty to Zuma, National Assembly Speaker is yet to rule whether it will be conducted as a secret or an open ballot. Zuma will be unlikely to lose if it is the latter, requiring disaffected ANC MPs to openly side against him. He may be less likely to survive the privacy of a secret ballot, however, and the party may find itself needing to choose its new leader sooner than anticipated.

Regardless of the timing, when Zuma does go, who will replace him? Although they have not formally nominated themselves yet – the official nomination process is not scheduled to begin until September – the two most likely contenders are former African Union Commission Chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (an ex-wife of Zuma) and current ANC Deputy President and billionaire businessman, Cyril Ramaphosa.

While Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa will be the frontrunners, they are not the only contenders and a relative outsider may end up being selected to reunify the party. Among the other potential candidates are , Baleka Mbete, , and . For now, however, the focus is on Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

Born Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini in the then province in 1949, the 68-year old Dlamini- Zuma holds the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in addition to a diploma in tropical child health from the University of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She left South Africa to go into exile in 1976, completing her studies in the United Kingdom. While working as a paediatrician in Swaziland, she met Jacob

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Zuma, the man who would be her future husband. Zuma is a polygamist in the traditional Zulu style and Dlamini would be his third wife. Married in 1982, the couple divorced in 1998.

During the 1991-92 “Convention for a Democratic South Africa” (CODESA) negotiations that dismantled the framework of and mapped out the transition to full democracy, Dlamini-Zuma served on the Gender Advisory Committee. A member of the ANC since her student days at the , Dlamini-Zuma was appointed Health Minister by President . She served as Foreign Minister under and interim president before being appointed Home Affairs Minister by incoming president Jacob Zuma in 2009, a post she held until winning the position of African Union Commission Chairperson in 2012. Upon completion of her term, she returned to South Africa in January 2017.

As a contender to succeed Zuma, she is has the backing of a number of high-profile individuals and groups, including her former husband. Zuma has openly endorsed her candidacy with his statements that the ANC is due to have a female leader. She is also backed by the so-called League, a powerful grouping within the ANC led by the premiers of KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North-West and provinces. KwaZulu- Natal (KZN), the home province of both Dlamini-Zuma and her ex-husband, has traditionally exerted considerable influence within the ANC. While some will baulk at supporting her in light of the party’s failings, Dlamini-Zuma can still expect to receive strong support from the KZN delegates at the December Elective Conference.

The equally influential ANC Women’s League wasted no time in endorsing Dlamini-Zuma. While she will have welcomed the League’s early and unequivocal support, that mere fact that it was so quick to pledge its support for her is another indication of the factionalism within the party. The ANC Youth League and the often controversial military veterans’ association have also backed Dlamini-Zuma.

With a no-nonsense – often abrasive – manner, Dlamini-Zuma can point to some important policy successes in her career. In keeping with her own interest in child and maternal health, as the first post-apartheid Health Minister, Dlamini-Zuma succeeded in improving health outcomes for millions of South Africans who, prior to 1994, were effectively excluded from the health system. She was equally fearless in tackling the tobacco industry to ban tobacco advertising, strengthen the 1993 ban on smoking in public buildings and to require stronger health warnings on tobacco products. At the Home Affairs department, she turned the inefficient and -riddled organisation around to such an extent that it received its first clean audit of the democratic era.

Less impressive, however, were her support for the discredited Virodene HIV/AIDS antiretroviral medication and the expensive failure that was the AIDS awareness musical Sarafina II. As Foreign Minister, Dlamini-Zuma – like President Thabo Mbeki – was criticised for her soft response to the thuggery of the Mugabe regime in .

Despite the high hopes held by many at the start of her tenure, Dlamini-Zuma’s term at the African Union was characterised by a general underperformance. On the plus side, as a longstanding gender activist, she helped to raise awareness of the problems faced by

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women and girls across the continent and was the driving force behind the ambitious, if disjointed, long-term development strategy, Agenda 2063. Under her leadership, though, the AU was ineffectual at preventing or responding to outbreaks of conflict. Equally, she did little to discourage various presidents from flouting constitutional limitations on their power and several times refused to back the International Criminal Court.

Her frequent trips back to South Africa and her unwillingness (or, perhaps, inability), to converse with other leaders in their native languages – French, Portuguese and Arabic are, alongside English, all official AU languages – did little to demonstrate a sense of camaraderie and, for many, hinted at her time at the AU as being merely a springboard to the top job in .

Back in South Africa, her critics allege that, as president, she is most likely to offer a style of governing that is little different from that of Jacob Zuma. As his preferred candidate, Dlamini-Zuma can benefit from Zuma’s networks but she is also tainted by her proximity to him. It is certainly notable that she has never publically criticised him or his government.

Cyril Ramaphosa

The Deputy President of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa has held that position since December 2012. He has been the Deputy President of South Africa since 2014.

Aged 64, Ramaphosa was born in . He became active in the anti-apartheid struggle during his time as a law student in the mid-1970s and was twice detained by the security forces. Later, he became a legal clerk at a law firm while completing his studies, graduating in 1981. Combining the anti-apartheid struggle with trade unionism, Ramaphosa became the inaugural of the newly-formed National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1982 and, three years later, played a leading role in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Under Ramaphosa, the NUM came to represent almost half of the total black workforce in the South African mining industry, with membership rising from 6,000 in 1982 to 300,000 a decade later.

Upon being elected ANC Secretary-General in 1991, Ramaphosa resigned from his position at the NUM and went on to lead the ANC delegation at the 1991-92 CODESA negotiations. In 1994, Ramaphosa was elected to Parliament. He was subsequently chosen to be the Chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly, the working group that wrote South Africa’s democratic constitution. Ramaphosa was reportedly favoured by Nelson Mandela to succeed him as president, but moved into the private sector in 1997 upon being passed over in favour of Thabo Mbeki.

Ramaphosa was the Executive Chairman and founder of Shanduka Group, a company that had investments across the economy, including the resources, energy, banking, insurance, real estate and telecommunications sectors. He divested himself of his Shanduka interests upon being named Deputy President. In 2011, Ramaphosa won a 20-year contract to own and run the McDonald’s restaurant franchises in South Africa before selling it five years later to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, MSA Holdings. Ramaphosa has also been chairman of a number of other companies and a non-executive director of several more,

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including . The exact amounts vary, but he is reportedly the overall twelfth- richest South African and the second-richest black South African, with a net worth estimated at between 6.4 billion rand ($622.4 million) and R9.1 billion ($884.8 million).

A Ramaphosa presidency has already has received the endorsement of the NUM, the and Free State branches of COSATU, the ANC branch, the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), ANC Gauteng chairperson , the province and also, reportedly, the South African Communist Party (with the ANC and COSATU, the final third of the ruling ), Limpopo province premier and the influential former premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, . Ramaphosa appears to be gaining support in KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape and . While KZN might be a tall order – it is the home province of Dlamini-Zuma – a further boost for Ramaphosa could come from Gauteng, where premier shares broadly similar outlooks with him on such contentious issues as the labelling of “white minority capital” and the expropriation of land without compensation.

Clearly a successful businessperson, Ramaphosa will no doubt be all too aware of the need for meaningful and inclusive economic growth with which to address the many glaring and persistent socio-economic inequalities that continue to plague South Africa. Equally, though, he cannot fail to be aware of the many challenges confronting entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes in South Africa. His business experiences may help him to balance the often conflicting demands of the business community, the many South Africans still trapped in poverty and of a government attempting to effectively restart a stalled economy. He has, for instance, called for the government and mining companies to come together to renegotiate the controversial new Mining Charter that raised the minimum required level of black ownership of mining companies. The newest iteration of the charter was unveiled by the government on 15 June 2017 after little to no consultation with the industry.

While Ramaphosa’s business credentials will endear him to economists, investors and businesspeople, they are equally likely to be viewed as a negative by those on the left wing of the ANC, who will critique him for being a stooge of “white minority capital” and for undermining “radical economic transformation”. Constitutionalists and the many opponents of Jacob Zuma will also have been buoyed by Ramaphosa’s calls, which add to his recent and increasingly trenchant criticism of the president, for an inquiry into the undue influence and “capture” of key state institutions by the wealthy Gupta brothers, who are close associates of Zuma.

As someone with experience in contentious negotiations, Ramaphosa has been a voice of calm before, imploring South Africans to show national unity in July 2014 after calls by , the unashamedly populist leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters movement, to remove the -language component of the national anthem. In response to Malema, Ramaphosa said: ‘We are about building a nation and we must extend a hand of friendship, a hand of continued reconciliation to those who feel that the national anthem does not represent them any longer, and it can happen on both sides.’

Given the role that he played in the crafting of the Constitution, Ramaphosa ought to be better acquainted than most with its intricacies. He could also, therefore, perhaps be

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expected to have a commensurately greater awareness of the constitutional implications of the many failings of the Zuma Administration, of which, after all, he is the second-in- command.

Ramaphosa was tainted by the August 2012 in which 34 platinum miners, on strike from the corporation, were shot by in the single greatest use of lethal force in the post-apartheid era. Those expecting the former union boss to speak up on behalf of the miners were to be disappointed. A Lonmin company director and shareholder at the time, Ramaphosa was vigorous in calling for the strike to be broken, describing it as ‘dastardly criminal conduct’. He was subsequently absolved of any wrongdoing by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry but the whole Marikana incident could still be a weakness for him.

Ramaphosa may be perceived by many as somewhat distant or aloof, perhaps not least due to his success in the business world, and he may have to work hard to cut through that perception. On the other hand though, his main opponent is not renowned for her warm personality and former president Thabo Mbeki was often characterised as cool or distant, especially in comparison to the warmth of his predecessor, Nelson Mandela, but that did not prevent him from reaching the top office. Ultimately, it may be that Ramaphosa’s ability to negotiate and compromise helps him to portray himself as a more unifying figure than the potentially polarising Dlamini-Zuma, who may be seen as being too close to her ex-husband and not offering enough of a clean break with the past.

While the winner will, of course, have to convince all South African voters of his or her merits come the 2019 general election, for now the more pressing task will be convincing his or her comrades in the ANC that he or she is the person who can restore the party’s lost lustre and move both it and the country forwards. Given the circumstances that the victor will inherit, achieving those ambitions will be no mean feat.

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Any opinions or views expressed in this paper are those of the individual author, unless stated to be those of Future Directions International.

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