The ANC, deeply soaked in various crises as it is, can hardly afford the divisions induced by the Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa contestation for the party's presidency.
Unity, a commodity the ANC so desperately desires, has not been attained. So, if this contest is permitted, one faction will temporarily celebrate after winning a battle, but the entire party will walk into the 2019 elections limping.
As things stand, the ANC leads a national government that is under enormous pressure. The economy, for example, faces a downgrade to "junk status". University students are in constant revolt. Unemployment is pandemic. The party lost key mega-cities in August 2016. Even worse, it is governing with reduced moral authority and legitimacy.
Panicked, it has resorted to suspicious propaganda, "black-ops war rooms", and using soldiers to ensure law and order at the State of the National Address.
How then can the ANC afford a bloody showdown between Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa? Since the question is not whether or not the ANC will be hurt in 2019, but rather how deeply, why can't it just triangulate the strengths of both for the 2019 elections?
There are plenty of advantages in combining their strengths and qualities. In Ramaphosa, you have a solid businessman, a seriously competent public servant who is widely respected, a constitutionalist who is already the deputy president of the republic and the ANC. Keeping him in the presidency allows for continuity and institutional memory.
Dlamini-Zuma, equally, has solid administrative abilities. She turned the Home Affairs Ministry around, is a highly educated medical doctor and has just completed her stint as African Union Chair.
A seasoned freedom fighter, she is a Pan Africanist and an internationalist .
With both at the helm, both the presidencies of the ANC and the republic will regain some respectability, which, under Zuma, has been the very source of the ANC's assortment of miseries.
But they both also have weaknesses. Neither can lead the ANC into a spectacular victory in 2019. Both have limited mass appeal.
Egos aside, these two desperately need each other.
The ANC needs a "package" with wide appeal. Neither faction can on its own rescue the ANC . Dr Ndlovu is a senior lecturer at University of Cape Town
OPINION: ANC faces disaster unless Cyril and Nkosazana unite
The ANC, deeply soaked in various crises as it is, can hardly afford the divisions induced by the Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa contestation for the party's presidency.
Unity, a commodity the ANC so desperately desires, has not been attained. So, if this contest is permitted, one faction will temporarily celebrate after winning a battle, but the entire party will walk into the 2019 elections limping.
As things stand, the ANC leads a national government that is under enormous pressure. The economy, for example, faces a downgrade to "junk status". University students are in constant revolt. Unemployment is pandemic. The party lost key mega-cities in August 2016. Even worse, it is governing with reduced moral authority and legitimacy.
Panicked, it has resorted to suspicious propaganda, "black-ops war rooms", and using soldiers to ensure law and order at the State of the National Address.
How then can the ANC afford a bloody showdown between Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa? Since the question is not whether or not the ANC will be hurt in 2019, but rather how deeply, why can't it just triangulate the strengths of both for the 2019 elections?
There are plenty of advantages in combining their strengths and qualities. In Ramaphosa, you have a solid businessman, a seriously competent public servant who is widely respected, a constitutionalist who is already the deputy president of the republic and the ANC. Keeping him in the presidency allows for continuity and institutional memory.
Dlamini-Zuma, equally, has solid administrative abilities. She turned the Home Affairs Ministry around, is a highly educated medical doctor and has just completed her stint as African Union Chair.
A seasoned freedom fighter, she is a Pan Africanist and an internationalist .
With both at the helm, both the presidencies of the ANC and the republic will regain some respectability, which, under Zuma, has been the very source of the ANC's assortment of miseries.
But they both also have weaknesses. Neither can lead the ANC into a spectacular victory in 2019. Both have limited mass appeal.
Egos aside, these two desperately need each other.
The ANC needs a "package" with wide appeal. Neither faction can on its own rescue the ANC . Dr Ndlovu is a senior lecturer at University of Cape Town
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