Did President Jacob Zuma escape out of the tight corner into which he seemed to have been pinned in the course of the African National Congress (ANC) national policy conference’s ‘Second Transition?’ spat? It will only be the weeks after this June 2012 conference that will deliver the definitive answer on how and with what damages he (mis)calculated his position in relation to the second transition document. The signals and trends that emerged from the policy conference deliberations, however, were significant pointers to the unfolding ‘Battle for Mangaung’.[i] Zuma had tied his own de facto ANC presidential re-election campaign to the document ‘The second transition?’ In the process, he self-dented his ambition to be another second-termer president of the ANC and South Africa. This was happening in times when one of the hottest debates in South Africa and the ANC was whether ANC leadership was sufficiently visionary, inspiring and decisive. Indications at the time of the policy conference were that Zuma did indeed make it out of the corner. Yet, each battle towards the national elective conference in Mangaung in December 2012 leaves scars. There is no doubt that Zuma sustained a few of these imprints in the month of June. The process that had been unfolding in the course of the final five-week run-up to Midrand 2012 sheds light on the internal dynamics of contestation in the ANC. First, in the pre-policy conference period, especially in the late May to June period in speeches to ANC provincial and trade union conferences, Zuma tied his campaign to the second transition document. Close Zuma associates confirmed that this was Zuma’s positioning in the ANC presidential battle. He had a ‘vision’ and this is how he would lead South Africa and the ANC beyond the first two decades of ANC rule and into the second century of the ANC’s existence. His camp was beaming; their man had a platform. Next, the ANC provincial structures’ feedback into the ANC’s organisational policies started rolling in. The responses indicated that Zuma’s ride into the Mangaung second sunrise was going to be less than smooth. The pre-conference count showed that out of the ANC’s nine provincial general councils, eight came with some or serious reservations about the document. The provinces had no hesitation to pronounce in favour of further, even drastic, socio-economic transformation in South Africa. Yet, the positioning in terms of ‘now is the time for socio-economic transformation’ was rejected. Critics in the ANC pointed out that the ANC had indeed expended much time and effort in its first 18 years in power to try and achieve socio-economic transformation. The most like opponent to Zuma – deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe – weighed in on these critiques in a Harold Wolpe memorial lecture about two weeks before the policy conference. It was a widely acclaimed speech, both for making an input into the ANC debate on its future direction and for someone at long last taking a substantive position in opposition to the incumbent’s rampant campaign. Zuma’s advisers jumped into action. Zuma’s Tuesday policy conference opening address, still tentatively, emphasized the need for further transformation and action on poverty, unemployment and inequality – much more than positioning these actions as part of the ‘second transition’, although he did not disinherit the document. By Tuesday afternoon, the winds of change were raging in the Zuma camp. In his unprecedented 90-minute engagement with the media at Gallagher Estate, Zuma stressed that the second transition document was a product of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC), not his. Both in his speech and the briefing he legitimized delegate debates about all aspects of all documents. He deftly succeeded in placing a distance between himself and the document. This was well-strategised. By the end of the work of the commissions on the second transition and ANC strategy and tactics the document had a bloodied nose and, according to information shared by delegates, not even the same name. The whole document was repositioned in the course of the commissions’ ‘robust’ debates. The document name was to have reference to the ongoing and cumulative nature of the transformation project driven by the ANC. Delegates favoured inclusion of the word ‘consolidation’. Reports from delegates and aides to the presidential candidates, prior to the ANC’s official media briefing on the topic, suggested that Zuma had very narrowly avoided embarrassment and a deflation of his campaign. Yet, the Motlanthe camp was slightly despondent. Their man had not gained the definitive foothold they had hoped for. They had anticipated more of a policy conference show-down that would have elevated their man unambiguously. Zuma’s pre-emptive retreat saved face for his campaign. He was, nevertheless, not anointed. Susan Booysen, Professor in the Wits Graduate School of Public & Development Management (P&DM) and author of The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power
– By OPINION: Professor Susan Booysen
