Johannesburg - KwaZulu-Natal has again returned empty-handed from the ANC’s 55th national elective conference.
This is after the province with Dr Zweli Mkhize failed to rally enough numbers to upstage Cyril Ramaphosa as president. KZN also could not find an amicable solution that would have ensured Mdumiseni Ntuli emerged as secretary-general.
A number of people said this might be tribalist, as the Zulu people did not make it to the party’s Top 7.
This is a repeat of 2017’s 54th conference, where no Zulu member was elected for top positions. Some KZN delegates said they have no hard feelings about being omitted but Bheki Mtolo, ANC provincial secretary for KZN, dismissed this.
“We have always answered comprehensively and correctly that there is no law that says KZN is like a kingdom in the Top 7 – that it’s a job for KZN. There are many provinces that don’t have people in the Top 7. There are nine provinces in the ANC; neither the Free State or Mpumalanga have anybody here.
“You (the media) are doing it deliberately because that thing you are saying is to mobilise people of KZN to disown the ANC, as if they will only be associated with the party when there’s people from KZN (in the Top 7). There is no such thing,” said Mtolo.
He said “when one applies for membership in the ANC, you are put on provisional membership, which is then transferred to the national level, and after that, one becomes a member of the party in South Africa, where they can reside anywhere”.
Mtolo said the outcome of the top leadership represents democracy and the view of the branches.
He also dismissed claims that KZN was defeated. Leading up to the conference, KZN delegates were confident that Mkhize would close the conference as the new ANC leader.
“This is not boxing; this is democracy at play, and it’s only the ANC that does these things. We came here united, we have leadership now, and we will go to the 2024 elections with one pressure: to be elected democratically, and we will defeat the enemy,” said Mtolo.
Political analyst Lesiba Teffo decried the lack of countrywide representation of the Top 7 leadership, following the announcement of new ANC leaders.
He also criticised the lack of representative racial make-up of leadership in the ANC.
“Where are the Indians in the executive? Where are the coloureds and where are the white people in the structures of the ANC? This is not the ANC that was envisaged by the founding fathers of the ANC in 1955 in Kliptown.
“You know that tribalism is the greatest enemy in African politics. I would have been a lot happier if the spread in the executive would have taken into account the regional contours of our country, because the concentration of the Top 7 is very much in Gauteng.
“It is very much in the province, and I am not very comfortable with this. If they could work on that, I would be happy because I know what tribalism has done to Africa and what it can still do today. Tribalism can be used and manipulated by those who are seeking to benefit out of it and those seeking to disorganise the country,” he said.
With KZN having lost both positions of ANC president and secretary-general, Teffo said he hoped Ramaphosa would keep Mdumiseni Ntuli close so that he could succeed to lead the party, and possibly the country later. He described him as a man of sound and sharp mind.
He said the KZN loss, which repeated itself again at this conference, indicated that KZN was at war with itself.
“You know there is a saying that a family at war with itself will never go far. This is true for KZN. Ntuli is a brilliant young man. He is intellectually sound. I have met him, by the way, and he is intellectually articulate and intellectually superior to some of the people in the Top 7.
“That fellow, for me, is good enough to be the secretary-general and even for the deputy president position, especially if you want to begin to build your succession plan for the future. That fellow should have been up there, and it is a pity that he is not there,” Teffo said.
The Star