Was a breakaway party on CR17’s agenda?

Former tourism minister Derek Hanekom’s admission that he plotted with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to oust Jacob Zuma in the last no-confidence vote in parliament has raised another question.

Had Cyril Ramaphosa, now president of the party and the country, and his supporters planned to break away from the ANC if he lost to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the elective conference in 2017?

Some believed that another party like the Congress of the People could have been formed by those disgruntled with Zuma who saw Dlamini-Zuma as his proxy.

Zuma backed his former wife in the contest for a new ANC president in December 2017.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said EFF leader Julius Malema’s claim that Hanekom had informed him that Ramaphosa supporters would form a breakaway party if Dlamini-Zuma won could not be written off.

He said Malema was always well-informed about the internal affairs of the ruling party and the EFF specialised in amplifying the ANC’s factionalism and infighting for its own benefit.

Mathekga was responding to Malema’s claim that Hanekom cooperated with the EFF in a plan to remove Zuma via a motion of no confidence, which Zuma survived.

Malema said Hanekom had supplied the EFF with a list of ANC MPs who were going to vote with the EFF in favour of the motion.

Malema also said Hanekom had told him they would form a new party if Dlamini-Zuma won.

In a statement to the SABC, Hanekom admitted he had met EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee several times to discuss how to oust Zuma. But he did not comment on a plan to split from the ANC or that he gave the EFF names of ANC MPs who would vote against Zuma.

In the end, ANC parliamentarians voted against the EFF-sponsored motion after the party warned them not to vote with the opposition.

Hanekom was among those who publicly called for Zuma to step down and raised a motion of no confidence against him in an ANC national executive committee meeting.

In apparent revenge, Zuma fired then finance minister Pravin Gordhan and former higher education minister Blade Nzimande from his Cabinet.

Mathekga, the author of Ramaphosa’s Turn and When Zuma Goes, said the more he examined the Ramaphosa campaign for control of the ANC, the more the mystery deepened.

It was even more interesting that the CR-17 campaign, as Ramaphosa’s campaign was known, managed to raise more than R300 million.

In Ramaphosa’s Turn, Mathekga highlighted that his campaign was run by outsiders. But the fact that he received a R390 million donation was indicative of his influence outside the party. This money would have tempted him and his followers to form a breakaway party, if they chose.

“Cyril’s campaign was run outside of the ANC. To me it remains a mystery because we know so little about it,” Mathekga said.

He said the stakes were so high in the 2017 ANC presidential race that anything could have happened.

“Had they lost, I would imagine they would have thought of forming something bigger than the ANC. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had formed a movement or party in the same way that Cope did,” he said.

Ramaphosa’s campaign was supported by a battery of powerful ANC members, including head of the party’s economic transformation subcommittee Enoch Godongwana, former ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu, former health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, former justice portfolio committee chair Mathole Motshekga, Pravin Gordhan and Hanekom.

“These leaders were strongly behind Ramaphosa. They symbolised him. I would take it very seriously if this is said about them.”

But another analyst, Mcebisi Ndletyana, doubted Malema’s claim. “I never got the impression there was a plan to break away from the ANC … but I really don’t know.”

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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