ZUMA - Pro-poor: the populist president
South Africa’s ex-Deputy President and current ANC Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, is, rightly, viewed as a ‘people’s person’. Armed with extensive ‘struggle credentials’ through his time spent in exile during Apartheid, Zuma is a populist contender who holds significant grassroots support, despite facing potentially crippling setbacks such as corruption charges, a rape accusation, and embarrassing comments on homosexuals and HIV & AIDS.
Zuma’s popularity however does not extend only to ‘the masses’. The ANC Youth League, as well as ANC Tripartite Alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) have all pledged support for him, though internally, a number of top ANC members, including Mbeki himself, remain reserved about Zuma’s potential ascendancy to the presidency position. This largely stems from the corruption charges that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is looking to charge him with. The coming months will thus be the ultimate decider of Zuma’s fate with the NPA looking to successfully link a potentially incriminating document to him, essentially ending his political aspirations; if not, the NPA’s efforts may add to his ‘martyr’ status that and could lead Zuma to the top-seat of the ANC and the country.
MBEKI - Blocking Zuma
The next possible contender for ANC president is Mbeki himself who has led the party for the past 10 years and South Africa since 1999, While Mbeki cannot - as ordained in the Constitution - maintain the country’s presidency for a third term, he is able to run for ANC presidency again. While some provinces have called for a two-term limit, this was dismissed at the recent national conference and announced that the 2-term limit for ANC president will not apply.
Mbeki’s relationship with Zuma has been strained since his sacking of the now ex-Deputy President following the initial corruption talks, and the President is said to be running for ANC president purely to block Zuma and ensure a successor he deems relevant is placed in power. If Mbeki’s strategy is successful of being voted in for a third ANC president term, he could achieve his goal of ensuring a woman becomes South Africa’s next President (either current Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka or Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma) as well as maintaining the direction that he has built up (Dlamini-Zuma, as Foreign Minister, is internationally networked while Mlambo-Ngcuka has been instrumental in working on South Africa’s latest economic-focussed policy, namely the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa - ASGI-SA).
However, if this is achieved, and Mbeki is elected ANC president again, business and policy-makers alike will only know closer to the General Elections who - and with what agenda - will rule the country post-2009.
SEXWALE - Re-entering politics
The last serious contender is the very successful multi-billionaire businessman Tokyo Sexwale. Founder and Chairman of the Mvelaphanda company, Sexwale, like Zuma, was intricately involved in the ANC struggle, though following his position as the Premier of Gauteng - South Africa’s political and business hub (containing Pretoria and Johannesburg respectively) - which ended in 1998, Sexwale entered the incredibly lucrative world of transformation-focussed business. At the time, the country’s laws were in the process of being changed to readjust the skewed financial position between whites and blacks following Apartheid. The result of this is that Sexwale now holds significant business interests, an issue which has led various groupings to accuse him of having lost his ‘people-focus’ - the most vocal so far has Zuma’s allies COSATU and the SACP. COSATU particularly is seen as critical in ensuring the workers’ votes, and the Union has stated that they will not support Sexwale’s candidacy due to his anti-poor agenda.
Sexwale meanwhile has stated that "being in business doesn't make me any less understanding of the question of the poor", though his focus on policy issues seem likely to further alienate him from the pro-poor groups. In early-June 2007, for instance, Sexwale commented that it is the private sector that is responsible for wealth creation, and not Governments and civil society - a contentious issue for the two partners and one which has lead to vocal criticising and opposition to Mbeki's economic policies over the past few years.
The way forward - end-2007
The following few months will be a time of partnerships, rallying, and political jostling. Mbeki’s decision to run for ANC president will largely rest on the progressions in Zuma’s corruption charges before the ANC meeting in December 2007. If Zuma is implicated by the courts and the NPA, his chances of becoming ANC and National president will be significantly reduced, potentially resulting in Mbeki withdrawing from the race for a third term, as his agenda - if this is the case - will be null and void.
Zuma is likely to continue his political rallying despite the possibly impending trial, and will no doubt maintain considerable support from within the ANC, the poorer voters and allies COSATU and the SACP. As such, the NPA’s decision - despite their claims that their dealings are not politically motivated - will be intricately linked to South Africa’s leadership future.
Last on the list is Sexwale whose case is not as easy to read. In January 2007 Sexwale disputed a media report stating that he was approached to run for the ANC president, calling it “kite-flying”. However, only months later, he told the BBC that he was considering nomination, though his latest is that he is not yet in the running, and is awaiting “instruction” from within the ANC.
In essence, Sexwale’s chances rest largely on Zuma’s fate, while Mbeki’s decision is to be determined by how the NPA and the court’s actions play out. There are of course other contenders whose names have been bandied about, but by-and-large, this group of three are the leaders at this stage - each with differing agenda’s and outlooks. As for the country’s commercial interests, the domestic and international business community will no doubt be eagerly watching progressions. Despite Mbeki’s claims that the succession race is not "an issue for the rest of the world” , Sexwale and Mbeki hold vastly different opinions to Zuma in terms of their business outlook. While the latter espouses a pro-poor agenda, the businessman Sexwale punts a commercial approach, not overly dissimilar to Mbeki’s policies over the last decade - something which the business world is undoubtedly hoping to maintain.