Deputy President Paul Mashatile says he will avail himself should ANC branches nominate him to succeed President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mashatile said even though party leaders are not supposed to openly campaign ahead of the party’s national conference, he believes they should avail themselves when approached to contest positions.
With Ramaphosa serving his last term as ANC president, the party is scheduled to hold its national conference in 2027, during which his successor will be elected.
“As leaders of the ANC, not only me, I think we should always avail ourselves to serve the movement when asked to do so,” said Mashatile. “I don’t think we should stand on top of the roofs to say ‘I’m available’. Let’s wait for members to ask us and should they, my own view is that we should make ourselves available in whatever task they give you. So it’s not pick and choose. If members don’t ask you to serve in a particular position they probably will have reasons not to but maybe they will want you to serve in another capacity.”
Mashatile is the frontrunner to succeed Ramaphosa but is likely to face a fierce challenge with suggestions that Fikile Mbalula is also salivating at the prospects of getting the position. Other leaders believed to having been lobbied for the job include former health minister Zweli Mkhize, police minister Senzo Mchunu and premiers Oscar Mabuyane and Panyaza Lesufi.
Mashatile has the advantage of being second in command and his supporters would argue that he is next in line. However, he will not be an easy candidate to sell to the party faithful after reports that he is being investigated by several law enforcement agencies including the Hawks. Media have run articles alleging possible corruption involving his relatives. Mashatile’s possible ascendancy to the highest office may also have implications for the government of national unity (GNU) as the DA has made it known it will not work with an ANC led by Mashatile.
Some around him believe he is being “decampaigned” so that by the 2027 conference he will not even be in consideration to take over from Ramaphosa.
“If you ask me, are there people who may want to influence branches [against me], I think naturally, yes, there will be forces who will try, because people in society have their own interests, and then they have their own choices, and they will try that,” said Mashatile.
“But the ANC branches normally don’t succumb to that. They look at their leaders on the basis of what the leaders are doing for the organisation, for the country. So people will try to influence, but I have seen over time that the branches of the ANC don’t easily get influenced by those things.”
Mashatile has been assigned the difficult task of chairing the clearing house — a mechanism to resolve issues of contestation among GNU partners.
For parties that were on opposing sides less than six months ago, it was inevitable that there would be fundamental differences. From BEE, to foreign policy, to education and health, among others, the GNU partners have to navigate treacherous waters to find common ground.
The structure has had two meetings so far, which Mashatile said were mostly centred on the Bela Act. But foreign policy differences this week proved to be a serious sticking point.
While Ramaphosa was cosying up to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, his minister of agriculture and leader of the DA John Steenhuisen was contradicting him back home.
When Ramaphosa told Putin during the Brics summit in Russia that his country remains South Africa’s valuable ally and friend, Steenhuisen fired back with a strongly worded statement saying the DA “does not consider Russia, or Vladimir Putin, to be an ally of our nation”.
Mashatile told the Sunday Times that Steenhuisen was out of order for criticising the president in public when there was a structure specifically established to deal with such disagreements.
“It was unfortunate, and we have raised it with our colleagues in the DA — if they have issues there are platforms where they should be raised, the clearing house being one of them,” said Mashatile.
“So there was no need for Steenhuisen to react the way he did. He should have said, ‘Look, I want us to discuss our approach to foreign policy. We don’t agree with this, we don’t agree with that’.”
He said the clearing house was established with the agreement of all party leaders and it was a concern that Steenhuisen opted to release a public statement instead of raising his issues internally.
In contrast with the Russia situation, the GNU ministers presented a united front recently on trips to the US led by Ramaphosa and to the UK led by Mashatile.
The main partners in the GNU, the ANC and the DA, have so far disagreed publicly on three critical issues: the Bela Act, national health insurance and now foreign policy.
The events of this week, Mashatile said, made it clear that foreign policy was a pressing matter that the clearing house would also have to discuss.
“Foreign policy has not come up sharply except, of course, we did raise the issue that came as a result of the comment by the leader of the DA. But we have made room for that because we know that even on the issue of Israel-Palestine we’re not seeing things the same way. But we have agreed that there’s one thing in common, we want peaceful resolution of conflicts.”
The approach to foreign policy in the GNU cabinet and clearing house would have to be centred on what was best for the country and not specific parties, said Mashatile. “Our approach is that what is in South Africa’s interests must drive us as we engage.”
Mashatile said he wants the GNU to work. And he wants to make sure that the issues that keep coming up do not affect the partnership. He has previously said he believes the coalition will last the entire five-year term.
On the Bela Act signed in September he said Ramaphosa extended an olive branch to parties who did not agree with it by delaying implementation of two of its sections for three months.
“In fact, this was one of the discussions in the clearing house. But because we didn’t have a lot of time, we did not conclude the discussions. However, we started, and it was not acrimonious.
“And when all is said and done, [Bela] is really issues around language policy and admissions, so you narrow it down to that,” he said.
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