in the Eastern Cape was the clearest indication that the CR17 team was willing to go the full mile to ensure their victory. They knew that ANC national conferences are won and lost ‘on the ground’, and winning a key province like the Eastern Cape was pivotal in ensuring that Ramaphosa would have a real chance.
The machinery of the CR17 campaign was on full display during the Eastern Cape conference. For one thing, Mabuyane and his supporters were dressed in a style similar to that of the CR17 team; delegates were well looked after; and money definitely exchanged hands. Organisers who worked on the campaign would have you believe that money was not used to bribe delegates to support Ramaphosa but merely to ‘take care of them’.
At the national conference, the Western Cape delegates were paid the equivalent of what they had lost in wages by spending a week in Johannesburg for the conference’s duration. Representatives from all nine provinces who were registered as ‘CR delegates’ were given accommodation in special hotels away from those paid for officially by the ANC. This was in an effort to ensure that the campaign team could always keep count of how many votes Ramaphosa would get. It was also to prevent their delegates from falling victim to solicitation by the other side.
Some delegates had hopped on buses with just the clothes on their backs, and the campaign had to fork out money to buy the basic necessities for them. Paying for separate hotels meant also paying for food and transport for delegates and ensuring that they were satisfied with the treatment they received. From the outside, it looked and smelled like bribery. But to Ramaphosa campaigners it was the nature of the beast. The other side, they claimed, was using state resources and the state apparatus in their favour. They could not sit back helplessly.
As much as the CR17 campaign tried to centralise all campaigning efforts to ensure nothing could become the subject of criticism for use by the opposition against them, unofficial and dubious activities crept in. This meant that money spent was sometimes unaccounted for and the campaign did not get real value for their buck. People would ask for money on the pretence that they were organising an event in a remote area of the North West, for instance, only to disappear with the cash.
But because campaigning in the ANC exists under a cloud of such secrecy, false pretences and disingenuousness, it is hard to manage and keep things in order. This is probably why, by their own admission even after their victory at the conference, the CR17 campaign committed a litany of mistakes.
Motlatsi, who was at the centre of the campaign, said the foremost error was allowing just about anybody into the political committee. This meant that there were people right at the heart of the campaign who were only there because they were not wanted by the other side. As a result, a number of decisions taken were not made solely in Ramaphosa’s interest.
Then there was the impression created that Ramaphosa’s campaign was run and managed by white people, reinforcing rumour and speculation that Ramaphosa was simply a front for the political interests of white people. Even those who supported him were upset that the campaign logistics were organised by Donné Nicol and former MK soldier Marion Sparg. This perpetuated the widespread notion that Ramaphosa was but a proxy of white people and of white monopoly capital.
Elective conferences are often a time for political fixers and runners to make money. What is referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as the ‘conference economy’ involves fixers buying expensive cars or campaigners using campaign resources to pay off their houses. In the CR17 campaign, systems were created to avoid these temptations. Donné Nicol would ask for slips as proof of payment and would request people’s bank account numbers to reimburse them for expenses rather than paying them in cash.
Another mistake of the CR17 campaign was to focus entirely on Ramaphosa’s election as president and not to give any thought to the other leaders who would form part of his presidential team. In other words, they ought to have formalised a list of those who would clearly feature on Ramaphosa’s election slate and a list of preferred candidates for the eighty-member ANC National Executive Committee.
Besides Mantashe coming out to contest the position of ANC chairperson and Senzo Mchunu that of secretary-general, other senior positions were less clearly earmarked. Some attributed this neglect to the fact that Ramaphosa did not want a leadership slate, but the more plausible explanation is that within the campaign there was stiff competition for positions. The position of deputy president was the most complex one to navigate for this group.
In addition to Ramaphosa running against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, there were five other candidates who threw their names into the hat. This complicated matters as two other senior top six leaders at the time wanted to be president: then ANC national chairperson Baleka Mbete and treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize were both campaigning for that position. Long-serving ministers Jeff Radebe and Lindiwe Sisulu also put their names forward alongside that of Mathews Phosa for the ANC presidency.
While there was a lot of noise about the number of candidates competing for the ANC presidency, as they tried to secure branch nominations, Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa were the clear forerunners. Mbete’s campaign began in earnest but there were soon signs that it was going nowhere. The same was true for Radebe’s and Phosa’s prospects. Mkhize’s presidential aspirations were pinned on the efforts of David Mabuza and Paul Mashatile to create a ‘unity’ card that would effectively play both sides, and for some time his campaign seemed to be formidable.
Sisulu’s ‘it’s a must’ campaign also got some traction although not as much as was expected. She was made to believe by the political fixers around her that she had a real chance at securing the ANC presidency. This is why when she was approached by the CR17 campaign to stand on their slate as deputy president, she rebuffed them arrogantly. Not only did she refuse, but she also said Ramaphosa ought to be her deputy. This was a reassertion of the view that Ramaphosa was politically junior to those ANC leaders who had been in exile or who had served a prison sentence on Robben Island. When talks broke down with Sisulu, Mkhize hoped to be considered as deputy president, but that didn’t quite work out either.
Ramaphosa’s main rival was Dlamini-Zuma. She was supported by the ANC’s Women’s League, who used gender as their main campaign tool. Her candidacy was supported by the widespread belief that it was time that the ANC was led by a woman. To compete against this, Ramaphosa and those close to him felt that the only way they could confront the gender question was to have a woman deputy president on their leadership slate. This led to an eleventh-hour search for a suitable candidate, who emerged in the person of Naledi Pandor. She was a respected woman in the ANC and a hard-working minister. But the only snag was that she did not have a strong constituency within the ANC.
A decision was then taken among the senior members of the campaign team that Ramaphosa would formally and publicly endorse Pandor in an effort to send a message to his supporters in branches right across the country. This move was to backfire spectacularly. With a month before the Nasrec conference in December 2017, Ramaphosa decided to announce his slate openly – a decision that has since been described as foolish. He stood on stage in Sekhukhuneland in Limpopo and declared who his running mates would be. He was as clear as ever: ‘Support Comrade Naledi Pandor for deputy president,’ he said. He also told his supporters at the rally that they should vote for former KwaZulu-Natal ANC chairperson Senzo Mchunu as secretary-general and then secretary-general Gwede Mantashe for national chairperson. Paul Mashatile was the candidate for the position of treasurer-general.
When Ramaphosa made this announcement, he knew that Mantashe, who was in charge of running the ANC, would have to denounce what he had done. Ironically, the person who was part of the inner circle of the CR17 campaign had now to condemn Ramaphosa. This was done by way of a statement issued a day later. ‘The ANC … calls on all its leaders and members to desist from the practice of pronouncing on and circulating slates which may be seen to undermine the branches’ inalienable right to select candidates best placed to implement the national democratic revolution,’ the ANC officially declared.
Ramaphosa, who was obviously peeved by the tone of the statement, decided to release his own one in response. ‘The names I mentioned for leadership positions arose from interactions and nominations emerging from ANC structures and should be understood in that context. This, however, does not detract from the importance of, at all times, reaffirming