ANC prepares for life after Zuma

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is preparing for “life beyond Zuma” as pressure continues to mount on the party leader and President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, to step down.

On Wednesday, Zuma was again the focal point of tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets of some 13 cities and towns to demand that he goes immediately.

SA nearly ground to a halt as, once again, there was widespread civil agitation against Zuma’s corrupt system of cronyism and dubious dealings, which has seen billions of dollars in public funds redirected to the benefit of an immigrant business family, the Guptas.

In April, after the shock midnight firing by Zuma of trusted Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, followed by an immediate ratings agency downgrade of SA’s investment status to “junk”, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets.

But most of those protesting then were already opponents of both Zuma and his party.

This week, however, it was the ANC’s own key allies in the form of the Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) and the SA Communist Party (SACP) whose members carried signs calling for an end to corruption and “state capture”, and for Zuma’s immediate step-down.

The protests went off peacefully, though comments by COSATU and SACP officials on the sidelines were anything but mild-mannered.

Senior ANC figures in the party have been saying that while there are divisions and factionalism around the party’s leadership succession race, “there is no crisis in the ANC” since Zuma’s term as head of the party will end in December when it undertakes its elective conference, at which time someone else will lead the party.

That assessment does not resolve the fact that the contention within the ruling party is essentially between supporters of Zuma’s system of “corrupt cronyism” and those backing a “new broom” to sweep the party, and the state, clean.

There is also contention at grassroots level for public employment positions, from local councilors up, which is behind rising inter-ANC violence.

For COSATU, the SACP and many within the ANC opposed to Zuma’s rule, the preferred choice for next ANC leader is the party’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

COSATU President Sdumo Dlamini explicitly endorsed Ramaphosa on national TV for the first time during Wednesday’s protest action.

However, those supporting Zuma and his chosen successor, his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, are not giving up without a fight.

This presents the ANC with the prospect of not merely a hotly contested year-end elective conference, but one in which the current divisions within the ANC could lead the ruling party to split as neither Ramaphosa’s supporters nor Dlamini-Zuma’s appear willing to back down.

Both sides claim to be the true heirs of Mandela and the more than century-long history of the ANC’s battle against racial rule.

It is now being speculated that perhaps the only solution for the ANC is a third “non-factional” leader, most likely in the person party treasurer general Zweli Mkhize.

Mkhize, a 61-year-old medical doctor, has two advantages over the front-runners in that he has mostly stayed above the infighting and has strong support in his home region of KwaZulu-Natal, which has the largest ANC membership of the nation’s nine provinces.

The task of uniting the ANC after the damage to the party’s image and unity caused by Zuma’s scandal-ridden presidency is, however, more than merely daunting – the divide in the party now runs literally from bottom to top.

KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, is at the centre of the struggle where a bitter split that has led to a court ruling that the provincial leadership had been illegally elected.

There has also been a growing number of casualties from in-party factional violence in the province, claiming at least 20 recent victims.

Mkhize as a third candidate option seems to most observers a long-shot and, if it happened, would be a sign of the depth of desperation within the party to prevent a split in what is Africa’s longest-standing “liberation movement”.

Other contenders to replace Zuma include Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Parliamentary Speaker Baleka Mbete and Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, but there is little support for them.

David Mabuza, the ANC’s chairperson in Mpumalanga province and an influential figure, has reflected the ruling party’s growing anxiety about the divisions it is ranks with calls for a consensus candidate. He favours Mkhize.

But it seems highly improbable, a week on from an emergency ANC executive meeting held to thrash out the party’s divisions and growing factionalism, that any resolution acceptable to the majority of voting ANC members attending the year-end conference will be found.

The COSATU and the SACP leadership have said they will not accept Dlamini-Zuma as only Ramaphosa will do.

That means that even if the ANC can convince its electors to put Dlamini-Zuma in the top job, or have Mkhize instead, both COSATU and the SACP may well still break away from the ANC-led alliance and go it on their own.

That would hurt the ANC badly and the party would almost certainly lose the next elections.

Efforts to head off a split through a compromise candidate are also likely to leave the perception that the ANC had “fudged” the issue of Zuma’s corruption legacy, thereby making it vulnerable to being punished by voters at the polls.

Meanwhile, Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), representing SA’s top businesses, has thrown out two state enterprises, with more to follow, because of their involvement with “state capture”.