Letter From Mt Frere: With President Cyril Ramaphosa facing mounting pressure over Farmgate, Zukile Majova looks at those most likely to replace Ramaphosa if he is forced out.
Events of the past week have blown the race for the position of ANC president wide open with at least five candidates hoping to replace the incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The candidates include party treasurer Paul Mashatile, Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, suspended party secretary Ace Magashule, disgraced former health Minister Zweli Mkhize and deputy president David Mabuza.
Two weeks ago, Ramaphosa was cruising to seemingly certain victory at the ANC conference in December.
His contenders had yet to get the support of any province.
Ramaphosa’s Thuma Mina faction was winning key provincial conferences like the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.
The Radical Economic Transformation faction led by former president Jacob Zuma had yet to present a candidate apart from Magashule confirming he’d accept nomination.
But this week, Ramaphosa’s backers found themselves on the back foot with members of the ANC executive calling for Ramaphosa to step aside.
This follows former head of the State Security Agency Arthur Fraser’s revelation of a robbery cover up at the president’s Phala Phala Farm where an estimated $4 million was stolen.
If Ramaphosa loses this fight, Mabuza becomes a de facto leader of the Thuma Mina faction.
Mashatile appears to have dumped the Ramaphosa faction to begin a campaign that may later join the Zuma faction.
This week he betrayed Ramaphosa and agreed to comply with the subpoena from suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane instructing him to share Ramaphosa’s leaked clip in which the president said state funds were used to fund the ANC election campaign.
Sisulu has been able to stay out of corrupt activities and as a member of the famous Sisulu dynasty, she would make the perfect running mate for any of the front runners trying to win the ANC Women’s League with a female candidate in the presidency.
Mkhize’s campaign is dead in the water after the ANC conference in the EC was won by Ramaphosa loyalist Premier Oscar Mabuyane.
Magashule’s campaign is unlikely to gather any steam as he is bogged down by his pending fraud and corruption case which returns to court on 23 September.
So the next few months in the ANC ‘broad church’ should be really interesting indeed.
