Divisions among ANC delegates accentuated by song and dance

If there is a track song for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign to be re-elected ANC president it would be the ditty with the lines “Ramaphosa, re morata kaofela; re tsamaya le yena”.

Loosely translated it means “We all love Ramaphosa. We’ll follow him/we’ll go with him…”

The song, is accompanied by a two-finger peace sign, which Ramaphosa's supporters use to denote a second term in office.

It is not the only song in the house. Ramaphosa’s opponents, rallying around the personality cult of former president Jacob Zuma, have reworked the old chant to include the lyrics “we Phala Phala, wositshele ukuthi uZuma wenzeni?” (Hey you Phala Phala tell us what wrong has Zuma done?).

On Friday night another presidential hopeful, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, asked KZN delegates to remain in the plenary hall after others had left.

Depending on who you listen to, the meeting was either to express her disappointment with KZN delegates who heckled Ramaphosa as he was presenting his political report or persuading delegates that she was willing to get her supporters to divert their support to a candidate opposing Ramaphosa.

Dlamini-Zuma, who this week defied the party line and voted for a motion to start a process that could see Ramaphosa impeached, is technically still in the running for the presidency of the party even though she did not get enough branch nominations to automatically make it onto the ballot paper.

A Zweli Mkhize lobbyist said the meeting was an attempt to measure the levels of coherence among the branches to vote for an anti-Ramaphosa candidate instead of splitting their votes

It is hoped that at the latest by sunrise Sunday, Ramaphosa will know if those singing the song meant what they were saying or were just going along with the melody of the song.

After a day when very little happened, the main business of the conference, which is the nomination and voting for delegates, was expected to start on Saturday night.

By 9pm, delegates were still receiving the credentials report, an item that was pencilled in for the first afternoon of conference.

Predictably lobbyists for presidential hopefuls, Ramaphosa and Zweli Mkhize, were confident that they had made significant progress in persuading delegates that their man was the best candidate to lead the party to the 2024 general elections.

According to several delegates who attended the commission on constitutional amendments, the one change to the ANC statute that was certain to be adopted was the provision to get a second deputy secretary-general, making the top leadership of the ANC a “top seven” for the first time in its history.

There only debate is who between the contenders Nomvula Mokonyane, Febe Potgieter and Gwen Ramokgopa will fill the two slots. Mokonyane and Potgieter respectively led the list of nominations going into the conference.