ANTHONY BUTLER: GNU in spotlight as ANC leadership battle heats up

First published in Business Day

13 December 2024

by Anthony Butler

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula joins a protest march in Pretoria, November 29 2024. Picture: FREDDY MAVUNDA/BUSINESS DAY

Observers of the ANC are reaching for a familiar second term playbook to predict party dynamics. According to tradition, initially fluid factions will consolidate around potential successors and proxy issues at the ANC’s national general council scheduled for mid-June 2025.

The ANC’s electoral system produces two credible presidential candidates while facilitating the creation of two broad national factions, though last-minute turbulence can force factions to cohabit. 

Candidates are not supposed to campaign openly for office so competition between factions at the national general council will be expressed through proxy issues. The main divide will be whether to continue the coalition with the DA, or transform the government of national unity (GNU) into a broad front that includes Jacob Zuma’s MK party and the EFF.

A two-horse race between two weak but evenly matched candidates — deputy president Paul Mashatile and party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula — has been widely expected. Mashatile, damaged by exposes of his finances, lifestyle and unsavoury friends, has burnt bridges by double-crossing KwaZulu-Natal delegates. Mbalula is better placed to capitalise on Eastern Cape “it’s our turn” sentiment, and has the added advantage of having risen to prominence through the ANC Youth League rather than a single province.

Despite the early signs though, the conventional pattern of two-candidate competition and accelerating factional consolidation may not continue into the national general council next year. First, many ANC regions are in turmoil as they undertake their own elective conferences. Parasitic on state resources in the places they govern, they cannot be disciplined but also cannot reliably make deals. The corralling of delegates into organised factions will be harder than ever, so inherently opaque vote buying is likely to grow in importance.  

Second, the key electoral provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are in chaos, made worse by the proxy battle between Mbalula, who wants to disband provincial structures, and Mashatile, who loves cadres and wants them to enlist in therapy programmes.

Gauteng chair Panyaza Lesufi is now showing the middle finger to the national ANC, but he is not happy simply to ride on Mashatile’s coat-tails. He will be 70 before his senior has served out two presidential terms, so will stab him in the back now if the opportunity arises. 

The rise and prospects of MK remain poorly understood. Will Zuma’s party sweep the board in local elections in KwaZulu-Natal, as Mathews Phosa told the Cape Town Press Club last week? Or is its weak performance in by-elections over the past six months a harbinger of collapse? 

Third, much of the ANC remains in denial over the devastating electoral routing at the end of May. Former president Kgalema Motlanthe long ago anticipated that defeat “would be good for the ANC itself … because those elements who are in it for the largesse will quit it, will desert it, and only then would the possibility arise for salvaging whatever is left of it”. Instead, the GNU has allowed the fantasy of ANC hegemony to persist. 

The most unpalatable part of this new situation, after a decade of concern about EFF influence in ANC leadership elections, is that the DA now holds many of the cards. If leader John Steenhuisen and his party bosses refuse to countenance a coalition with a leader they view as fundamentally corrupt, the elevation of Mashatile would be a fateful decision indeed. 

The ANC expresses itself with much emotion, but it is now driven by money. Denial and political uncertainty make early support for any particular leader or faction highly risky. The 2026 local government elections may have to pass before activists are willing to make a real commitment about their preferred future leadership. 

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.