President Cyril Ramaphosa’s closing address at the ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference underlined deep divisions in the party as he faced hostility from some delegates.
Ramaphosa was met with boos and the singing of wenzen’uZuma — a song sung in support of former president Jacob Zuma — as he arrived inside the plenary at the Olive Convention Centre yesterday. Though Ramaphosa appeared unfazed, it was the first time he had encountered such hostile reception at a party conference.
It took newly elected provincial chair Sboniso Duma to calm the delegates.
He pleaded with the delegates to show discipline and respect Ramaphosa as the ANC president.
“Comrades, this was the smoothest conference where we adopted credentials in 50 minutes, so let’s continue with that spirit,” Duma said.
“The president is aware that there are areas we are not happy with such as judicial system of the country. Comrade Matamela is also familiar with the feelings of KwaZulu-Natal that president Jacob Zuma is being persecuted. He is our president and deserves our protection.”
Ramaphosa had been warmly welcomed in three provincial conferences — Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga — where he also gave a closing addresses. These provinces have also publicly voiced support for his re-election for a second term as ANC president.
But yesterday’s events in KZN signalled paradigm shift in Ramaphosa’s support after the election of Duma whose slate, known as the Talibans, made a clean sweep, booting out former chairperson Sihle Zikalala.
Ramaphosa pledged to work with the newly elected leadership of the party in the province towards the renewal of the ANC.
“Every party has internal differences, this is not something new to the ANC. But what those different perspectives and approaches should never do is to divide us to a point where we regard ourselves as enemies or make it impossible for us to work together,” said Ramaphosa.
Duma’s clean sweep has seemingly embolden Ramaphosa’s opponents to challenge his leadership.
Political analyst and politics lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Zakhele Ndlovu said former health minister Zweli Mkhize has been given the boost to launch his presidency campaign.
“I think for Dr Zweli Mkhize, who is planning to challenge Ramaphosa in December, this is the start of his campaign... The challenge now is for him to win other provinces. KZN is very divided and not united as it used to when Zuma was president. I don’t know if this lack of unity will affect them in December. They do have numbers, they have the largest membership but how they’re going to use that remains to be seen because of divisions,” Ndlovu said.
0 of 8
Analyst Dr Fikile Vilikazi said Ramaphosa should be a little bit concerned about KZN’s outcome, particularly at how the Talibans organised themselves.
“The Taliban have exerted their strength and they’ve done a lot of work in terms of unifying themselves in how they pushed for Duma, lobbying in the slates in regions. They’ve been very tactical.
“There’s comment to push Mkhize to the presidency and this is well based campaign that’s emerged particularly in eThekwini, which is the ANC’s biggest region in country and KZN is the biggest province for the ANC. Once KZN is unified, it can influence the outcomes of an ANC conference,” Vilikazi said.
One delegate from Alfred Duma region said Zikalala's PEC forgot about the branches that elected them when they ascended to power.
Another delegate from eThekwini region, which threw its weight behind Duma, said the main reason for ousting Zikalala was the public endorsement of Ramaphosa to run for a second term.
“The main one was the public endorsement of the current sitting president, whom we believe is currently running the state to being a failed state. The decline in the rule of law because it’s applied inconsistently. Now the obvious capturing of the judiciary,” the second delegate said.
An ANC national executive committee member and Ramaphosa ally said they were not worried about the KZN results but added the ANC as an organisation should be.
“KZN and Gauteng will be difficult for ANC to retain in 2024. The contestation seen in KZN will go a long way and leave a deep hole in how the ANC is perceived. Whether we describe the contestation as democratic processes people see us as being in conflict with each other.
“KZN hasn’t recovered from looting, losing a number of municipalities and this is a political platform that should have been used to organise the ANC as an organisation,” said the member.
“KZN had this split in 2017 in Nasrec. The majority of it was not supporting Cyril and what you see is a repeat of that. The permutations there in KZN are not a ruler for Ramaphosa’s future. They’re likely to suffer the same consequences in 2017 and be left without an official in the top six.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.