Johannesburg – Former president Thabo Mbeki’s proposal that elected chairpersons of the ANC at all levels of the governing party should not be premiers or mayors has set the cat among the pigeons as it is likely to face major resistance.
Addressing the Eastern Cape provincial executive committee’s (PEC) extended meeting on Monday this week, Mbeki returned to the so-called two centres of power debate, which in part got him ousted more than 13 years ago.
The logic of not allowing Mbeki a third term as head of the ANC was to avoid “two centres of power”.
In other words, to avoid a tug of war between party headquarters Luthuli House and the presidency.
Mbeki told PEC members that the ANC erred when it chose to do away with its 1997 resolution, which separated the ANC and state positions.
He said that at the 1997 Mafikeng conference, which elected him as president, ANC members resolved that an ANC provincial chairperson should not necessarily be the party’s premier candidate.
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This was quashed in the 2007 Polokwane conference when Jacob Zuma came in as president, paving the way for ANC provinces to select premiers.
Mbeki said the reason suspended secretary-general Ace Magashule could not be premier of the Free State, despite being ANC provincial chairperson since 1992, was because they wanted “to do away with the expectations that because I’m gonna be chairperson of the ANC, therefore I’m automatically gonna be premier”.
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Mpumalanga ANC provincial acting chairperson Mandla Ndlovu said: “In terms of deployment, what we said in Polokwane is that the provinces must come with three names and, out of these names, the NEC [national executive committee] will choose one, and that will be our premier candidate.
“We never said that the ANC chairperson will automatically be premier. For example, in Gauteng the NEC picked comrade Nomvula Mokonyane’s name to be premier candidate for the 2009 election instead of comrade Paul Masahatile, who was provincial chairperson. Why?”
But another grouping in Mpumalanga, which supports premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, who is contesting Ndlovu for the position of provincial chair, feels that they need “to avoid two centres of power” in getting Mtshweni- Tsipane to be both ANC leader and premier. Limpopo provincial secretary Soviet Lekganyane seemed to anchor Ndlovu’s sentiment, saying separating positions does not really make a difference because the NEC chooses a premier, and that is a “reflection of the ANC being the only centre of power”.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela said it had not discussed the debate as advanced by the former president, but confirmed that the issue would be among the discussion points in the upcoming regional elective conferences.
An NEC member said Mbeki’s proposal would not fly as provinces such as Mpumalanga, North West and Free State already have premiers who are not provincial chairpersons.
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Additional reporting by Zama Khumalo.
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