FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA | Ramaphosa's race for ANC president not a foregone conclusion

Two weeks after SA held its collective breath over whether President Cyril Ramaphosa would resign, the country will once again wait in anticipation over whether he will return as ANC president.

Ramaphosa returns to the venue that gave him power a much diminished figure of hope than when he was given the reins of power five years ago.

Loadshedding, rising unemployment, state corruption without concomitant action against wrongdoers and, most recently, the Phala Phala scandal, have all taken the shine away from whatever promise his tenure held.

He will however walk into the Nasrec showgrounds in a buoyant mood after a series of small but significant developments in the days and weeks leading up to the conference.

Ramaphosa leads the nomination race by a considerable margin ahead of his nearest rival, former health minister Zweli Mkhize.

This though does not mean the race is a foregone conclusion that he has the presidency wrapped up because ANC processes have been known to be unpredictable.

Ramaphosa has the support of eight ANC provinces, the women and the veteran’s wings of the party. Mkhize on the other hand has the support of his home province, KZN, and the interim youth league structure.

Ramaphosa will be confident after ANC MPs ensured that he would not be subjected to an impeachment hearing having rejected the former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo-led panel’s findings that he might have a case to answer for a number of unlawful activities related to his Phala Phala game farm business.

While Ramaphosa may not have had a direct hand in all of them, a number of events this week suggested that he had consolidated his grip on power, with elimination of opponents in and outside the ANC.

The swiftness with which Ramaphosa’s opponents have met their fates this week is itself at odds with the notoriously indecisive ANC president.

His nemesis, former ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini, was disqualified from contesting for party positions. Next to fall was Carl Niehaus who was expelled from the ANC after a disciplinary committee found him guilty of misconduct and beyond rehabilitation.

This was followed by the temporary exclusion of another foe, Tony Yengeni, on grounds that he had a fraud conviction. Yengeni’s disqualification was however reversed after the party's electoral committee on Wednesday accepted his version that his criminal record had since been expunged.

Also out is another Ramaphosa opponent, Andile Lungisa, who was in the running to become the party’s treasurer-general.

Lungisa’s hopes were dashed on Wednesday when the Makhanda high court dismissed his urgent bid to interdict his suspension from the party.

Lungisa had sought the urgent interim interdict to give him an opportunity to lobby for the powerful position.

The ANC Eastern Cape disciplinary committee suspended Lungisa’s ANC membership for 18 months in June last year.

Outside the ANC, Ramaphosa on Wednesday suspended Western Cape judge president John Hlophe after years of controversial episodes by the Cape Town jurist, many of which involved fellow judges.

In another incident which, though not directly related to the ANC conference but might have a bearing on Ramaphosa’s hold on power, the much maligned Eskom CEO André de Ruyter on Wednesday announced he was stepping down.

Ramaphosa’s detractors in and outside the ANC have often used De Ruyter as a living example of Ramaphosa being beholden to white, big business.

It is now up to the unpredictable ANC branches to decide.

Incidentally, the one area that all factions of the ANC agree on is that money is a big factor in deciding ANC elections. That factor aside, this looks like Ramaphosa’s conference to lose.

If the actions taken against foes in the weeks leading to tomorrow are a predictor of anything, we might come to see Ramaphosa use his power for his professed renewal programme.

The question is whether he will have enough time to convince South Africans that he leads a rehabilitated party when we go to the polls in about 18 months from today.