South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa in hot seat as former allies lobby for his ouster

Leaders from the African National Congress (ANC) who are unhappy with the leadership of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa have been lobbying for months for him to resign at the party’s national general council – its biggest gathering between the five-yearly elective conferences – to be held from 8-11 December in Gauteng.

Now it has emerged that some of his most stalwart supporters in the past – who lobbied for his party leadership in 2017 and even in 2022 – have lost confidence and want him out before the party’s next elective conference in 2027.

In the Eastern Cape, one of the biggest voting blocs in the ANC, the party’s chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, is said to be part of a group looking to oust Ramaphosa. In 2017, Mantashe, the party’s then powerful secretary general, was one of Ramaphosa’s key campaigners.

Although he has been living in the city of Ekurhuleni, which borders Johannesburg, he has a strong power base in his birth province of Eastern Cape. Mantashe, who is also Ramaphosa’s mineral resources minister, has not made any public comments about the succession debate and he did not respond to a request for an interview.

Two party insiders tell The Africa Report that Mantashe is now backing Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s presidential ambitions, a bid by Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane to become Mashatile’s deputy, and ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli for secretary general.

Mabuyane unsuccessfully contested Mashatile for the party’s deputy presidency in 2022. Ntuli is also an unsuccessful 2022 contestant, and he comes from KwaZulu-Natal, a previous power bloc in the party, but much weakened after former president Jacob Zuma’s defection from the ANC.

At the same time, Mantashe is said to have distanced himself from erstwhile ally, ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula, who is lobbying for a position in the party’s presidency too. Mantashe backed Mbalula for the secretary-general’s position ahead of the party’s 2022 elective conference, but he is now said to be backing Mabuyane over Mbalula for higher office.

Early ouster?

One party insider tells The Africa Report there is a feeling that the ANC has fractured considerably under Ramaphosa. Although he is possibly the strongest asset the party currently has in a general election, he’s become a liability to the party’s internal functioning.

There is also unhappiness with the way Mbalula, with the apparent support of Ramaphosa, has reconstituted the party’s leadership in some provinces after disbanding elected provincial executive committees for underperformance in the elections.

This has led to an underground push for Ramaphosa’s early resignation at the end of this year, two years before the ANC’s next elective conference, and more than three years before the next general elections.

Another lobby in the Eastern Cape is arguing that former president Thabo Mbeki should be parachuted in for a limited period to take over the party’s leadership reins to help unite the ANC and push for economic growth in the country where Ramaphosa has failed. The lobby is not considered influential enough to succeed.

No graft protection for the party

Another source of unhappiness amongst senior party leaders is Ramaphosa’s perceived failure to provide political protection against corruption charges, as the National Prosecuting Authority is slowly starting to act on graft.

In October, Mantashe lost his court bid to overturn a 2022 state capture inquiry recommendation that he be investigated for corruption. The case concerns security upgrades to his private home, supplied free by Bosasa, a company that was identified by the Zondo Commission into State Capture as having corruptly won multimillion-rand state tenders. This has paved the way for possible charges against him.

In another blow to Mantashe, Ramaphosa in 2023 removed the energy portfolio from his ministry and appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who successfully put an end to scheduled power cuts.

After starting his political career in the mining unions, Mantashe has been an ANC office-bearer since 2007, when he was elected secretary general after lobbying for Zuma to become ANC president. He was re-elected in 2012 on Zuma’s ticket, but a few years later changed allegiance and joined then deputy president Ramaphosa in his presidential campaign on an anti-corruption ticket in 2017.

Election and GNU struggles

The party’s electoral performance under Ramaphosa has also been criticised by detractors. The party’s share of the vote dropped by 17 percentage points in the 29 May general elections last year, from just over 57% in 2019 – the party’s weakest show yet.

There were ANC leaders who argued that the party’s national leadership should have been dismissed for this bad performance, as it has done to the KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Western Cape leaders. Others argued that Ramaphosa, the most popular of the party’s leaders amongst voters, according to a number of independent opinion polls, should stay put, also to lead the party’s local government elections campaign next year.

Some in the ANC were also openly opposed to the party’s national coalition with the Democratic Alliance to form the so-called Government of National Unity and this debate is still expected to be high on the agenda for next week’s national general council.

There were also reports that deputy ministers Mondli Gungubele and Joe Phaahla were pushing for Ramaphosa’s removal because they were unhappy with being demoted from their ministerial positions after last year’s general elections, but both have strongly denied it.

Gungubele, who, like Mantashe, lives in the Ekurhuleni Metro, said on X: “A suggestion that I am part of a movement to remove the current president of the ANC needs the best possible psychiatric assessment because it must be part of a sickness to assert falsehood at all costs.”

In a statement this week, Phaahla said: “I reject these malicious, outrageous, and fallacious accusations that are devoid of any truth with the contempt they deserve.”

While next week’s national general council is not an elective body, the 2,000-odd delegates who attend provide a representative sample of the temperature inside the party.

During the party’s 2005 gathering in Pretoria, for example, the Eastern Cape successfully led a push against Zuma taking a leave of absence from his then-deputy presidential position in the party after corruption charges were levelled against him.

There have also been two previous instances – Gauteng in 1996 and KwaZulu-Natal in 2013 – where provincial general councils were converted into elective conferences. It might be tricky, however, since the auditing criteria for branch representatives for an elective conference are much stricter than for a national general council.

There has also been talk about having a shorter gathering and resuming it in the first half of next year as an elective conference.

Pushing back

Still, Ramaphosa is reported to have addressed attempts to unseat him during at least two meetings of the party’s 80-strong national executive committee in the past week or two, while his adviser, Bejani Chauke, denied speculation that Ramaphosa would step down after the G20 leaders’ summit.

“It should be stated unequivocally that the president of South Africa is not resigning,” he said on X. “The administration remains stable and focused on delivering for the people of South Africa, our alliance, and our economic partners.”

Ramaphosa also moved to assert his power in a televised address on Sunday night, framed by his office as feedback to the nation about South Africa’s successful hosting of the G20 summit. Earlier on Sunday both the ANC’s youth and women’s leagues issued statements in support of Ramaphosa’s leadership.
(The Africa Report)