Eyes on top spot in leadership race

Former health minister and ANC presidential hopeful, Zweli Mkhize, is in a final push to woo voting delegates ahead of the crucial national elective conference scheduled to kick off on Friday.

Mkhize, who in recent months has been crisscrossing the country as part of a campaign to drum up support ahead of the conference, will slug it out with the incumbent, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who will be seeking a second term as ANC president at the conference.

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On Saturday, Mkhize addressed thousands of ANC members in Gamalakhe at the Ugu District Municiipality in KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast.

Mkhize calls for unity
Mkhize, who unlike other ANC presidential candidates such as Tourism Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, who has developed a reputation for publicly attacking Ramaphosa, has as part of his campaign message been focusing on the rebuilding of the ANC, which in recent years has been battling a culture of factionalism.

“It has been a humbling experience to interact with ANC members and delegates to the 55th ANC National Conference.

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“Based on our interaction, we have agreed that …we have a responsibility to promote unity within the ANC and its alliance partners.

Unity means encouraging participation for each one to contribute to the decisions being taken in such a manner that people with opposing views openly exchange their ideas and debate their differences without feeling that they belong to different sides, but rather are members of the same team
Ramaphosa has been nominated by the majority of branches in eight of the ANC’s nine regions, while Mkhize was able to get a majority only in his home province of KZN.

ANC KZN provincial secretary vouches for Mkhize’s win
However, ANC KZN provincial secretary, Bheki Mtolo, said that the fact that the nominations were made by ANC branches, some of which have more than a thousand members, made it difficult for all the branch members to fully acknowledge the fact that Mkhize was currently the only ANC presidential candidate who could stop the party’s decline.

When it’s a lot of people as there are in a branch, it’s difficult to convince everybody. When you tell them that the Phala Phala scandal has become a serious danger to the ANC, some don’t take you seriously
“But now that we are interacting with delegates, who are about two or three members of each branch, its easier to get that message through.

“I can tell you now, people who are expecting comrade Zweli Mkhize to lose at the conference will be shocked. He will win this conference,” he said.

While ANC conference delegates go into the conference with a mandate from their branches on how they should vote, party conference guidelines allow them to deviate from the directive they received from their branches.

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As things stand, Mkhize and Ramaphosa were the only two candidates nominated by the ANC branches to contest the presidency.

However, the conference delegates have the power to nominate additional presidential candidates from the floor at the actual conference.

For the name of a candidate nominated from the floor to be included on the ballot, such candidates should be supported by 25% of the more than 4 000 ANC delegates who will be at the conference.