Nevertheless, the divisions within the party made for a multifaceted battle at Nasrec. The conference had both a policy and a leadership battle taking place alongside each other. The leadership battle was fought between former president Zuma’s group, with Dlamini-Zuma as their proxy candidate, and the anti-Zuma camp, which ran on an integrity ticket. Ramaphosa emerged as leader of this group, after he faced and fought off challenges from Zweli Mkhize, Lindiwe Sisulu and Mathews Phosa. As I have already mentioned, the anti-Zuma grouping has been in existence as far back as the 2007 Polokwane conference, when Thabo Mbeki lost the leadership battle to Zuma and those who were loyal to Mbeki found themselves out in the cold. Since then, the anti-Zuma camp has taken different forms and has been led by different leaders. Before Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe unsuccessfully attempted to topple Zuma at the 2012 Mangaung conference, utilising the anti-Zuma ticket. Ironically, the man who would ascend to power at Nasrec was brought back into politics by Zuma as part of his strategy to repel Motlanthe. But after emerging as the leader of the anti-Zuma group at Nasrec, Ramaphosa soon realised that his camp did not have sufficient power to take him all the way to victory. This was an element of the battle that had to do with leadership and it required a different strategy altogether.
The second element of the battle of Nasrec was the policy battle. It is important to note that when it came to the policy battle, it was the Zuma group that won at Nasrec, with Ramaphosa’s group securing only a few disclaimers attached to the end of the policy resolutions that were ultimately adopted by the party. Take, for example, the policy resolution regarding land reform: “Conference resolved that the ANC should, as a matter of policy, pursue expropriation of land without compensation. This should be pursued without destabilising the agricultural sector, without endangering food security in our country and without undermining economic growth and job creation.”9 The first part of the resolution echoes and gives effect to Zuma’s project of so-called radical economic transformation. The second part of the resolution, on the other hand, is a disclaimer, a safety valve that will give Ramaphosa the space to appeal for caution when it comes to setting the pace and scale at which this policy resolution has to be implemented. The rider that the policy of expropriation should “not endanger food security” is a disclaimer that Ramaphosa’s supporters can claim as their push-back against radical populism within the party. Such a compromise must surely paralyse the party: it is still not clear whether the basic thrust of the policy should be to avoid endangering food security by all means or to fast-track land reform while making sure that only acceptable impairments of food security are allowed. The reality is that policies often produce some level of unwanted results. The question is what level of collateral damage is acceptable, and according to whose standard. As it turned out, Nasrec could not resolve the policy squabbles within the ANC. The conference only further institutionalised the long-standing divisions within the party in the form of policy resolutions.
On policy matters, neither of the factions that went into the Nasrec conference could claim an outright victory. When it came to the leadership battle, at least the party presidential race, there was a clear winner. Ramaphosa can be said to have won. However, his victory did not come about in the way in which it was expected. I am convinced that because of a great sense of yearning for leadership change following the Zuma era, South Africans are not willing to appreciate the complexity of the leadership battle that ensued at Nasrec and the manner in which it was decided. True indeed, Ramaphosa won sufficient votes to become the president of the ANC. However, his supporters within the party did not ascend with him to the top positions. It became a very lonely victory as Ramaphosa emerged the winner but found himself surrounded by some very hostile forces. This was a far cry from the hope that Ramaphosa’s victory would represent a clean sweep of the party, indicative of deep changes effected within the ANC.
In the run-up to the elective conference in 2017, various institutions carried out monthly surveys of the unfolding contest between Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma. Throughout this time, I maintained that while Ramaphosa dominated the narratives in the broader public discourse, Dlamini-Zuma was actually in the lead. Most of my colleagues disagreed with me, and they were proved correct. Of concern for me was that, though probably correct, they underestimated the infrastructure and resource base of the Zuma camp and overestimated the likely success of what was a relatively weak campaign pursued by Ramaphosa. It seemed to me that the chances that Ramaphosa would win the race by relying solely on the anti-Zuma support base were very slim.
In fact, Ramaphosa’s victory came about through a strange combination of contradictory agendas knitted together in the eleventh hour with the sole purpose of securing a particular set of leadership results. Since neither faction, the Zuma or the anti-Zuma grouping, held an outright majority, the contest was won by an interest group that managed to subsume and overwhelm both factions. Unlike the two dominant factions within the party, it was the so-called Premier League – comprising former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo, Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza and Free State premier Ace Magashule – that came out of Nasrec with the maximum returns possible. In this way they outsmarted both the Zuma and the anti-Zuma factions, which had entered the conference with firm and uncompromising agendas. The Premier League was more than a faction; it was an interest group capable of exploiting either of the factions that existed. And it exhibited a resolute determination to win the leadership contest, which it in fact did.
The success of the Premier League has fuelled speculation, especially among the two factions, that Nasrec was rigged. There was a strong feeling at the conference that the results of the conference were fiddled with and adjusted, and as a result there were demands for recounts after the results came in.10 One must bear in mind, however, that the suspicion of rigging had been there in the period leading up to the conference. The provincial and regional conferences of the party responsible for preparing the branches for the national conference faced numerous disputes relating to processes of selection and election.
But whatever the truth of these allegations, there is no doubt in my mind that the outcomes of the elections were engineered by the Premier League, particularly in deciding the pecking order of the top six positions. In reaction to former president Zuma’s stubborn resolve to impose Dlamini-Zuma as his faction’s candidate, the Premier League’s power broker, David Mabuza, began to consider packing the top leadership of the ANC with people of his own choice. Had Zuma been more democratic and amicable when it came to deciding who was the rightful bearer of the torch for the Zuma camp, the conference could have turned out very differently. Instead, Mabuza gauged the power play by both the Ramaphosa and Zuma factions and arrived at the conclusion that he could maximise his returns from the conference by playing both factions against each other, weakening them individually and thereby strengthening his position as leader of an interest group. Mabuza realised that Ramaphosa was useful as the president because of his integrity and his ability to help the party win the 2019 general elections. At the same time, Mabuza did not openly state his reservations about supporting Dlamini-Zuma because this would have alienated Zuma, who would have used all the means at his disposal to stymie Mabuza.
Although Ramaphosa waged a morally superior campaign, he still did not have a winning plan. Put differently, Ramaphosa did not have a solid strategy to stop other contenders from winning. In the end, Ramaphosa owed his victory to Mabuza, who elevated him to a winning position that his own poorly performing faction could not have delivered. When the deed was done, the Dlamini-Zuma faction was left in shock and surprise, crying betrayal after realising that Mabuza used them, neutralised them, and also engineered the appointments of the top six leaders. As for the Ramaphosa faction, they simply put on a brave face.
Now that he has weakened the Zuma faction and secured the kind of victory he preferred – standing beside the respectable Ramaphosa instead of the compromised Dlamini-Zuma – Mabuza is probably already thinking beyond the Premier League. It has been murmured in media circles that Mabuza despises the manner in which Zuma embarrassed himself in the revelations about state capture.