At the ANC’s December elective conference at Nasrec, Ace Magashule miraculously beat the odds and emerged as party secretary-general.
In his role Magashule is responsible for the ANC’s administration and its secretariat, which amongst other things includes the party’s auditing of branches.
But instead of the business of the ANC, Magashule has been preoccupied with other matters, like supposedly plotting with former president Jacob Zuma and his supporters. This week, speaking at Cosatu’s conference President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the supposed plotters in a thinly veiled attack.
On Friday, Magashule upped the ante while addressing a Cosas rally in Bloemfontein and again without mentioning him, charged that Ramaphosa was “the product of the white man” while he had been “the product of the masses”.
It should also be noted that it was on a Cosas platform back in June that Zuma fired a broadside at his detractors, warning that he should not be provoked days ahead of his court appearance on corruption charges. While the charges against Zuma for fraud and corruption, stemming from the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal, he’s also accused of creating the fertile ground for state capture through the hollowing out of state institutions.
Just the other week the State Capture Inquiry heard that the Free State, where until recently Magashule was ANC chairperson and premier, was the most generous when it came to doling out business to the Gupta media entities - R80 million.
The Guptas, along with some of their top lieutenants and Free State government officials are also accused of looting R250m from the Estina Dairy project to benefit up-and-coming black farmers. In a normal democracy, those calling for “Radical Economic Transformation” like Magashule, would have started their own political party.
Instead Zuma’s proxies like Magashule will fight for control of the ANC not just at Luthuli House.
How Ramaphosa and his supporters respond to this will likely determine the future of the ANC whose share of the vote at next year’s poll is likely to decrease.