Former ANC deputy president David “The Cat” Mabuza was among the gorvening party’s heavy-weights who were one foot into the ANC national executive committee (NEC) at the 55th national conference but got kicked out by the party’s “zebra stripe” gender quota system.
Sunday World can today reveal that Mabuza as well as the now fired ex-minister Nathi Mthethwa, had in fact garnered enough votes to become part of the 80
additional members of the highest decision-making structure of the governing party between conferences.
However, theirs was a short-lived victory when the ANC applied its gender equity policy that obliges the NEC to have 50/50 male and female representation.
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Mabuza, who had declined nomination for a position among the top seven officials, would have banked on the selfless decision to earn him sympathy among conference delegates for space on the committee. The former deputy president of South Africa, was favoured by 1 079 delegates and placed comfortably in 67th place, but had to make space for former intelligence minister Dipuo Latsatsi-Duba when the gender parity audit got triggered.
Mabuza has since left the government and has no role in any meaningful leadership position within the party.
“It is not over for DD (Mabuza) and he might surprise many at the next national conference. The man is going back to start from scratch in his stronghold of Mpumalanga. He will have all the time in the world to work his way up without the Union Buildings commitments that dealt him a blow in the previous conference,” according to a highly placed ANC insider.
In the meantime, Mabuza is expected to keep himself busy doing community service work for his DD Mabuza Foundation.
Mthethwa and ANCYL ex-president Collen Maine were voted in at the 69th and 73rd places, respectively. But the duo got offloaded, and in their place came Mpumalanga premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane and Eastern Cape MEC for health Nomakhosazana Meth.
Bejani Chauke was the last male in 63rd place to survive in the initial top 80 NEC members voted by the delegates that gathered in Nasrec in December 2022. All male candidates behind him had to be sacrificed to accommodate women. Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Mcebisi Skwatsha was the first casualty though he came in number 64 in the votes.
Pam Tshwete, the deputy minister of human settlements, initially fell short of making the cut into the powerful 80-member committee after coming in at
position 82. But she benefited from the quota system and replaced Skwatsha.
Tshwete has since survived a chop as deputy minister in the recent cabinet shake-up, all thanks to her making it into the NEC by a whisker.
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