12 20 July 2017 Leadership in South Africa: 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 head of state and head of government. The two current frontrunners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former African Union 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 Jacob Zuma 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 Gauteng 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 state capture 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. Page 2 of 7 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 Baleka Mbete 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 Lindiwe Sisulu, Baleka Mbete, Zweli Mkhize, Jeff Radebe and Mathews Phosa. For now, however, the focus is on Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Born Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini in the then Natal 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 Page 3 of 7 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 apartheid 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 University of Natal, Dlamini-Zuma was appointed Health Minister by President Nelson Mandela. She served as Foreign Minister under Thabo Mbeki and interim president Kgalema Motlanthe 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 Premier League, a powerful grouping within the ANC led by the premiers of KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North-West and Mpumalanga 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 Umkhonto We Sizwe 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 corruption-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 Zimbabwe.