Zuma now stronger than ever … or maybe not

President Jacob Zuma and his supporters may have danced and sung after his victory in the no-confidence vote in parliament, but it’s not clear if he will have the last laugh at the ANC’s elective conference in December.

One high-level ANC source said Tuesday’s debate and vote will have strengthened Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign for the ANC presidency more than that of Zuma’s preferred candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Another high-level ANC source said despite the fact that Zuma escaped the political noose on Tuesday, the balance of power within the party now favours Ramaphosa. The fact that many ANC MPs voted in favour of the motion, against the party’s instruction, indicated increasing disillusionment with Zuma and anyone associated with him.

The source cited a general feeling within the ANC-led tripartite alliance that if the ANC was to perform well at the 2019 general elections, it had to offload Zuma before or after its national elective conference in December.

However, former ANC MP and ex-South African ambassador to Ireland, Melanie Verwoerd, said Zuma “got what he wanted, courtesy of the opposition parties”. She added: “After this vote, he is stronger than ever before, no matter how hard the opposition try and spin that many ANC MPs voted for the motion.

“The outcome of the vote has effectively silenced any opposition to Zuma in the ANC, at least until December.

“And it might even have, for now, strengthened his hand in terms of the outcome of the electoral conference.”

Gwen Ngwenya, head of the Institute of Race Relations, said the result was a “staggering victory for the ANC”, especially when compared with similar international examples. She cited the 2016 no-confidence vote in Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, where 80% of his party’s MPs voted against him in a secret ballot.

“It would be difficult to think of a leader and political party governing over a democratic country who could survive the political storms Zuma has weathered.

“As for the party, a motion of no confidence can have the result of making the governing party even stronger.

“And on August 8 it did. The ANC caucus didn’t put South Africa first, they put the ANC first.

“Zuma survived another day and, come 2019, with a new face at the helm and a heady mix of public amnesia and optimism, the ANC, too, will survive,” she said.

But ANC sources say Zuma is considered by many in the party as an albatross around its neck. A tripartite alliance source said Dlamini-Zuma’s reliance on the Zuma-supporting provinces, such as the Free State, North West and KwaZulu-Natal, and to an extent Mpumalanga, was being threatened by Ramaphosa’s campaign.

The source said Dlamini-Zuma’s reliance on support from the ANC’s women’s and youth leagues could cost her, as those structures had small delegations at elective conferences.

But “workers from Cosatu will be coming in a big way as delegates from ANC branches”.

However, North-West University political analyst Andre Duvenhage said neither Ramaphosa nor Dlamini-Zuma were ideal candidates for the ANC.

“The crisis in the ANC is bigger than the leadership these candidates can provide,” he said. – news@citizen.co.za