As most of the ANC’s provincial leaders have already professed their support for Ramaphosa come December, it is not yet clear how this new announcement will weaken his support within the party. Dlamini Zuma’s challenge may yet herald new problems for the ANC. As Ramaphosa still refuses to answer questions or explain his actions around the Phala Phala scandal, it may in fact be the governing party that suffers the most.

On Sunday the Sunday Times newspaper published a report quoting a spokesperson for Dlamini Zuma confirming that she would accept a nomination for the position of ANC leader in December. As the paper recorded, her spokesperson Mlungisi Mtshali said, “As part of the ANC nomination process, some branches have asked her to stand and she has agreed.”

This goes further than any other apparent contender so far, and suggests that in fact, Nasrec 2022 could be very similar to Nasrec 2017.

However, much has changed since Ramaphosa beat her so narrowly just five years ago.

First, this time around it appears most of the ANC’s provincial leaders have already said they will back Ramaphosa. The provincial executive committees of Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape have all gone on the record in this way. It may be important to note here that while they have said this in public, their branches have not yet met, so this is only the leadership structure speaking, but it is still significant.

Second, there is some evidence that KwaZulu-Natal is not as important as it was five years ago, and in the period before that.

The ANC has not yet published its branch audits which will show the number of branches each province has. In the past, KZN’s greater number of branches and apparent unity has given it great political power to act as a deciding block. However, while it has now elected a strongly pro-Zuma provincial leadership, the province may not be as monolithic as it once was.

At the same time, the ANC is now under much more electoral pressure than ever before. The prospect of having to govern with a coalition partner in at least two provinces and of dipping below 50% in national government may well be concentrating minds.

And it is not clear that Dlamini Zuma would win the party votes if she were its face on a 2024 election poster.

Opposition parties would say she is simply a proxy for former President Jacob Zuma, and that she would reopen the door to State Capture.

She has also shown herself to be incredibly shy of speaking to the media. 

While the media has never determined ANC contests, the fact is that the English-language media is becoming more important in urban areas. Especially during elections. ANC elections head Fikile Mbalula claimed, without evidence, that it was the SABC’s coverage that cost it votes in last year’s local elections. Dlamini Zuma conducted just one interview during her leadership campaign five years ago (with a decidedly friendly Gupta-owned ANN7).

Now, voters appear to demand more accountability than ever. It is not clear that she would be willing to answer questions on the record.

All of this could be damaging to the ANC if she were its leader in 2024. And ANC branches would surely understand this.

However, it is also becoming clearer that Ramaphosa himself is growing politically weaker, at least outside the ANC.

The Western Cape High Court’s judgment about his decision to suspend Mkhwebane as she was asking him questions about the Phala Phala scandal is scathing. They have found that Ramaphosa may have been biased in his decision to suspend Mkhwebane just days after she asked him questions about Phala Phala.

Perhaps the most stinging paragraph is this:

In our view, the hurried nature of the suspension of the applicant in the circumstances, notwithstanding that a judgment of the full court was looming on the same subject matter, leads this court to the ineluctable conclusion that the suspension may have been retaliatory and, hence, unlawful. It was certainly tainted by bias of a disqualifying kind and perhaps an improper motive. In our view, the President could not bring an unbiased mind to bear as he was conflicted when he suspended the applicant.”

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

While the DA has already said it will appeal the ruling to the Constitutional Court (thus appearing to prevent Mkhwebane from returning to office for the moment) this is still very damaging to Ramaphosa.

It suggests to voters that a person who claims to be leading a process of “renewal” and who promised accountability and transparency is failing to live up to his promises.

He has refused to answer questions from journalists about why there were US dollars in cash in the furniture of his farm.

He has refused to give substantive answers to Parliament.

So far, he has not provided a full explanation to the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb).

And since becoming president of the country, he has shied away from conducting one-on-one interviews with South African media houses.

Last week, a deadline issued by Sarb for him to explain the money appeared to expire. The EFF said it had been extended. The Presidency told the SABC that in fact, Ramaphosa had responded to Sarb, who had then asked more questions, and that he was now compiling the answers to those questions.

And yet, the critics who argue that nothing prevents him from explaining to the public what happened, when he is already giving answers to Sarb and the Public Protector’s Office, are indeed on strong ground.

It may also be the case that some of the problems created by this ruling are of his own making.

The evidence that Mkhwebane was not performing her duties in a neutral manner had been mounting since at least when the Constitutional Court issued its first personal costs order against her in the Absa/CIEX case. Many such damning court decisions followed without Ramaphosa’s action against her obvious delinquency.

If he had moved earlier, if the ANC had instituted the proceedings against her earlier (while this was originally a DA motion, in the Parliamentary process the ANC controlled all of the key levers of power here) then he could have suspended her before the Phala Phala scandal emerged.

And thus this ruling could not have been made.

It may be a result of his own caution, or his slow pace of political action that he is now in this jam.

This court victory may also be a vindication for the African Transformation Movement. It was the ATM that lodged the complaint with the PP about Phala Phala. The party’s critics claim it was created solely to frustrate Ramaphosa’s agenda. If that is the case, it has certainly succeeded here.

While the Phala Phala saga may not damage Ramaphosa within the ANC, and while he may still defeat Dlamini Zuma, there is still political damage to further weaken the crumbling edifice.

And it may be that in fact no matter how these dynamics end, in fact, the real damage is suffered by the ANC. And that it continues to lose support ahead of 2024, almost exclusively through the actions of its leaders. DM