Late on Tuesday morning last week, as the ANC elective conference was running out of time, the newly elected ANC secretary-general channelled his inner drill sergeant, his voice booming over the Nasrec loudspeaker system.

“Comrade delegates, I am Fikile Mbalula, secretary-general of the ANC… The following provinces should be in the [voting] queue: Western Cape, Northern Cape, Limpopo. The rest of us, let us go to the plenary hall… Please comrades, go inside the plenary hall for the commissions’ report-back.”

The tannoy announcement hit home what this, the 55th ANC national conference, was mostly about: electing leaders. And exhaustion, both from long nights’ slate haggling and voting amid messy, messy logistics.

Unprecedented for a national ANC conference, the gathering of over 4,000 delegates was adjourned to 5 January 2023 to meet in hybrid format from the provinces. No conference declaration was taken, no policy commission reports or resolutions adopted.

Those policy debates took place late at night amid voting for the Top Seven officials’ elections. And if sneaked photos and the Nasrec grapevine were anything to go by, attendance at commissions was, politely put, poor.

Attendance at the commissions at the ANC’s 55th Elective Conference. Photo: Supplied

Attendance at the commissions at the ANC’s 55th Elective Conference. Photo: Supplied

“It’s a pure, unfounded fabrication,” was Mbalula’s dismissal of this during a briefing.

But adopting policy commission reports and resolutions stalled on the conference’s final day because, as Mbalula’s loudhailer message indicted, voting for the 80 members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) was slow going.

Most of the action seemed to have relocated to the road leading up to the Nasrec conference venue, where scores of ANC delegates in their party T-shirts fired up braais, browsed stalls with food and party regalia – with the occasional paper-bag-wrapped booze bottle.

It almost seemed that once the winning Top Seven officials had been announced – President Cyril Ramaphosa and his side took five of these top posts – interest in the conference was just about done and dusted.

With Ramaphosa’s win widely welcomed as signalling the continuation of a reform and clean-governance agenda (business and investors seemed particularly pleased, and the rand bounced back from an earlier dip), it remains to be seen exactly how a favourable slate of officials translates into the NEC.

When the results were announced on Wednesday afternoon, almost 24 hours after the conference had adjourned, it seemed a mixed bag.

Ramaphosa got in many from his so-called renewal slate, which was finally released on Tuesday morning just as delegates went to cast their ballots. But political awkwardness ruled: several Cabinet ministers are gone from the NEC, which is the governing party’s highest decision-making structure between conferences.

Those dropped include Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, both from ANC alliance partner the SACP, and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, who didn’t accept nomination from the floor.

Crucially, also gone are two long-serving women, International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor and former defence minister-turned National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

Though the convention is that ministers and Speaker are members of the NEC, it’s not a must. The political seniority helps, but previously the occasional non-ANC NEC minister served in Cabinet, alongside those representing opposition parties.

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What makes this NEC result different, and somewhat awkward, is the number of non-NEC ministers now in Ramaphosa’s executive. It’s complicating a Cabinet reshuffle that has been talked up for possibly as soon as January – ANC time may be different – after Ramaphosa’s political hand was strengthened by his election for a second term as party president and with a five-out-of-seven sweep of the top officials.

On the back of ANC conference delegates’ votes, only three ministers and a deputy made it into the top 10 of the 80 additional NEC members: Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, Deputy Presidency Minister Zizi Kodwa and, crucially because they represent KwaZulu-Natal, which has again lost out in the top officials’ stakes, Police Minister Bheki Cele and Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu.

Both came from the pro-Ramaphosa so-called renewal list for the NEC.

That list highlights the breadth and depth of the horse-trading that underscored the ANC national elective conference, and the difficulty of finding untainted candidates.

The pro-Ramaphosa list included several names linked to dodgy dealings as well as individuals switching ANC factional sides,  like ex-president Jacob Zuma’s ally, former state security minister David Mahlobo.

Presidency Deputy Minister Pinky Kekana just last month was reprimanded in the National Assembly for taking R170,000 from corruption-accused businessperson Edwin Sodi. Ditto Dina Pule, the former communications minister who, in August 2013, was reprimanded in the House for breaching parliamentary ethics over channelling contracts to her then boyfriend. All three were elected to the ANC NEC.

The list also featured several gone from governance, such as former Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal premiers David Makhura and Sihle Zikalala – both are in the NEC top 10 – and ex-presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko. So too Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, who was dropped as state security minister after the May 2019 elections.

Very similar dynamics would have played out on the list of NEC names from the side of losing presidential contender Zweli Mkhize, the former health minister who resigned under the shadow of the Digital Vibes Covid-19 communication tender scandal.

Earlier branch nomination lists featured Malusi Gigaba, the Zuma presidency one-time finance minister who was sharply cross-examined at the State Capture commission over collecting bags of money from the Gupta brothers; Mduduzi Manana, who resigned as deputy minister of higher education after being convicted of assaulting three women; and Andile Lungisa, who served two months of his two-year jail term for assaulting a DA councillor with a water jug.

All three are on the NEC – Gigaba and Manana in the top 10, Lungisa at 11th place.

Also on the NEC at spot 29, according to the votes, is ex-ANC Women’s League boss Bathabile Dlamini, who managed to reverse her ban on the argument that her perjury conviction had allowed her to pay a fine rather than go to jail.

Such renewed NEC membership also complicates talk of a Cabinet reshuffle to drop Ramaphosa critics such as Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, or Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who bucked the party line to vote for a parliamentary impeachment inquiry over the Phala Phala farm forex saga.

Why is any of this important?

It shows the tight balance within the ANC – of factional power and clean reputations and the complex dynamics of accommodation for political survival. That’s regardless of the proclaimed anti-corruption and reform stance of Ramaphosa, reiterated also in his conference adjournment address.

In many ways, despite an ANC Nasrec 2022 elective conference result that went significantly in Ramaphosa’s favour, his manoeuvring space remains limited. Not only in the ANC, but also in the state.

Though his ANC parliamentary majority in the National Assembly just days before the conference killed off the recommended impeachment inquiry over the Phala Phala saga, investigations by the Hawks, tax authorities and the South African Reserve Bank continue.

Political clouds could follow Ramaphosa, who must lead an ANC of decimated support into the 2024 elections. In its own organisational report, the ANC talks of its “existential risk” of becoming a rural and peri-urban party. Ramaphosa’s second presidency term win at Nasrec 2022 may well be a Pyrrhic victory. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.