Cogta Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s action in Parliament on Tuesday may have been designed to serve as a provocation for delegates at the Nasrec conference — some may want to punish her, and some may want to defend her. At the same time, it should be remembered that there are important boundaries around what delegates can do at the conference, simply because of the risk that it could collapse, leading to the end of the ANC.

Standing up and uttering the phrase, “As a disciplined member of the ANC, I vote yes” is unremarkable — until we add the context. This was the first person to ever openly defy the ANC’s authority, in Parliament, publicly, while representing the party. For South Africa’s post-1994 politics, it is breathtaking. It has simply never happened before.

Dlamini Zuma was followed in voting for the adoption of the Section 89 Phala Phala report by fellow ANC MPs Mervyn Dirks, Supra Mahumapelo and Mosebenzi Zwane.

Tandi Mahambehlala first said she was voting “yes”, against ANC instructions, then tried to change her vote to “no”, but it was recorded as a yes. 

Lindiwe Sisulu and Zweli Mkhize, the people who would be leaders of the ANC, were both bravely absent during the vote.

Immediately after the proceedings, ANC Chair Gwede Mantashe promised that there would be disciplinary action against those who had defied party instructions.

It is not clear what form this will take. It is also not clear how, or when, this will happen. The current National Executive Committee’s (NEC’s) term expires on Thursday, 15 December. Conference delegates will be in control on Friday.

Dlamini Zuma’s contradictory statements

At the same time, Dlamini Zuma’s statements harbour many contradictions.

First, it was she, in 2017, who told ANC members that while the party was democratic, once a decision had been taken, they all had to defend that decision.

More recently, she stated that the ANC’s step-aside resolution was wrong because it meant people were being treated unfairly. And yet the moment the Phala Phala parliamentary panel made a finding against President Cyril Ramaphosa, she demanded that he resign.

It is also surely true that she would not have accepted an argument about a principle from any ANC MP who publicly voted against Jacob Zuma when he was president (those votes were by secret ballot).

In interviews after the latest vote, she said that the NEC meeting that took the decision to vote against the impeachment process ended without everyone being able to speak, and, thus, it was not a proper debate.

She also said it was not about removing the President, but rather continuing with a process that would allow him to clear his name.

 However, her critics will argue that this simply reveals her politics are not of principle. It may also reveal that those who believed she was not politically joined at the hip with former president Jacob Zuma were mistaken.

Many have argued that to say that she was a proxy for Zuma was simply being patriarchal, because of their previous marriage. But that misses the fact that two people can still operate as one political unit with the same agenda.

Ace Magashule and Zwane surely work together and probably have similar views on any given political topic. So it now appears to be with Zuma and Dlamini Zuma.

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

Serious questions for Zwane and Mahumapelo

Zwane, too, has serious questions to answer about his vote. If this week’s vote was about principle, where was that backbone when he helped the Gupta family take control of the Optimum coal mine? And why did he fly to meet Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg in Switzerland on their behalf in the first place?

There are massive questions for Mahumapelo, too. He has shown inconsistency in the past, telling ANC members never to take their party to court, and then he did exactly the same thing himself.

This public defiance by four MPs in the National Assembly is the first time this has happened in Parliament.

But one of the features of the ANC from at least 2013 has been ANC councillors defying ANC leaders in council votes. What started in Tlokwe spread to other municipalities, including Ditsobotla in North West. That resulted in the town with “two mayors”, and the by-election held there on Tuesday.

While that has been difficult to deal with, it may not threaten the party existentially. However, MPs voting in Parliament about the future of the President surely does.

What would have happened to the ANC if enough of its MPs had voted to remove Ramaphosa on Tuesday?

It is for this reason alone that the party may well have to act here and be seen to act to prevent similar events from happening in the future.

The importance of self-interest

With the ANC’s conference less than 24 hours away, this self-interest in keeping the party together could become more important over the next few days.

While there has been much speculation about possible “surprises” and “shocks” at the conference this weekend, this self-interest may put some boundaries around this.

Generally speaking, in normal times, any political shocks can be managed through structures. Leaders can call meetings of the NEC or the National Working Committee or the Top Six officials to make decisions. These meetings can be fairly tightly controlled.

Thus, these structures may sometimes act as shock absorbers, meetings can be delayed and postponed, and smaller groups of people being involved may allow cooler heads to prevail.

This also allows those with authority, often the chairperson or secretary-general, to control events. Arguably, this happened when the current chair, Gwede Mantashe, closed an NEC meeting last week, during discussions about the Phala Phala scandal.

These are not normal times

However, an electoral conference is very different, and these are not normal times.

The conference will involve about 4,000 delegates in one room at the same time. This is much harder to control, and there are no shock absorbers, as the then chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota found out in Polokwane in 2007. If there is, say, a surprise nomination of Paul Mashatile for the position of leader from the floor, it is not clear how delegates will react.

Of course, it is true that people have been nominated from the floor many times. But the ANC has probably never been as fragile as it is now, and tensions may be higher than ever before.

At the same time, if the conference collapses, all factions lose. This may place some limits on the shocks delegates can produce. Unless, of course, they involve deals with many constituencies and have broad agreement.

For reasons of simple self-interest, the conference could produce a result which is generally accepted and it may well include some kind of unity leadership.

But that will still leave difficult issues on which to reach an agreement —  starting with how to discipline people who defy the party’s instructions in Parliament and ending with deciding on which direction South Africa should take. DM