The roof is caving in on Magashule in the Free State

Suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule has been neutralised on his home turf as his rivals Mxolisi Dukwana and Thabo Manyoni emerge as the only two to vie for the Free State provincial chair position, with none of Magashule’s supporters contesting.

At the same time, while Dukwana and Manyoni are electoral opponents, both their camps were said to be behind President Cyril Ramaphosa, which would boost his fortunes at the ANC December national conference.

Dukwana and Manyoni were victims of Magashule’s manipulative leadership.

They were left bruised and cast aside by the powerful Magashule, whose influence engulfed the entire province during his 10-year reign as the provincial boss.

With his power doubled, being ANC provincial chair and premier of the Free State, Magashule kicked out Dukwana as his MEC for education, and marginalised Manyoni, who was his ANC deputy and mayor of Mangaung.

This after Manyoni unsuccessfully challenged Magashule for the top seat. In the light of sharing a common enemy, Dukwana and Manyoni were expected to be on the same side in the new battle for the soul of the ANC in Free State, but not anymore.

ALSO READ: Unhappy ANC branches up in arms

Instead they are stealing each other’s supporters. For Dukwana it would have been a walk in the park against Manyoni, but he had alienated most of his supporters who assisted him in his fights against Magashule.

The annoyed members switched sides to Manyoni, after Dukwana excluded them from the interim provincial committee (IPC) and from various interim regional committees (IRCs) lists he had sent to Luthuli House.

The IPC and the IRC replaced the dissolved provincial executive committee (PEC) and regional executive committees (RECs) until new ones were elected.

Dukwana even allegedly rejected his staunch campaigner, Monnapule Ntamo from Mangaung, who was spokesperson of the disgruntled group that successfully challenged Magashule’s leadership in court prior to the 2017 Nasrec conference.

Other loyalists that Dukwana also sidelined were Sello Dithebe from Lejweleputswa region, Titi Mokebe from Fezile Dabi region and Lala Tembani from Mangaung region.

“Dukwana may not be able to win because he decided to dump us and put unknown people on the IRPs and IPC lists. We decided to put our weight behind Manyoni,” said a member, who requested anonymity.

It is understood that some of Magashule’s backers in the province were now supporting Manyoni, who was Magashule’s ally before they went their separate ways towards Nasrec.

Some of them had changed their loyalties towards Ramaphosa, who was believed to have made significant in-roads in Magashule and Zuma stronghold, Free State.

To stamp his authority, Ramaphosa recently held a service delivery presidential imbizo and announced the national government takeover of the broken Mangaung metro.

The ANC is weakened in the Free State in general and the November local government poll proved this point. Its support had dropped markedly in the big Thabo Mofutsanyane region.

This was attributed to the ANC’s decision to expel 16 councillors at Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) who later established the MAP-16 party, which defeated the ANC and current govern the municipality in a coalition.

The ANC was also ousted by the Democratic Alliance in Fezile Dabi District, home region of Magashule.