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CrabCake
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« on: December 15, 2017, 08:45:26 PM » |
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« edited: December 16, 2017, 02:14:08 AM by Çråbçæk2784 »
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It's the end of the Zuma era, and the ANC's delegates are packed in the southwest of Johannesburg to pick a new leader. The monolithic party has had a very miserable few years, with Zuma leaving his role a much diminished figure, the party more divided than ever and having lost control of some of the country's most powerful metros to odd DA led coalitions. Some optimistic opposition figures even speak optimistically of managing to ouster the ANC in 2019 if the party cannot get a grip.
Our choices are:
Cyril Ramaphosa - the affable favourite. Formerly a popular and very successful trade unionist who led some of the most successful anti-apartheid actions and one of the most powerful and capable of the politicians in the immediate aftermath of apartheid; Ramaphosa found his ambitions snubbed by Nelson Mandela who chose the aloof technocrat Thabo Mbeki as his heir. CM decided to spend the next decade or so ignoring politics, fully embraced the "black capitalism" of the new era, building an enormous empire with fingers in many pies to support a rather lavish lifestyle. In 2014, he became Deputy President, although many view him as connected intimately with his many business interests including (especially perversely given his start as a unionist in the mining sector) Lonmin, the group behind the infamous Marikana massacres. He is representing the anti-Zuma "Right" of the party (not that Zuma ever bothered to push for significant economic changes but whatever) - Gordhan, Nene etc but also COSATU and the Communist Party; and according to polling the rank and file, but it's not like they're voting here. It's widely expected his first move will be to kick Zuma out (he had a road to Damascus moment, suddenly throwing out his sanctimonious fealty to his boss once it became clear that the Pres would back NDZ over his deputy).
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - former doctor and ex-wife of Jacob Zuma, who was Health Secretary in the Mandela days, where she had a ... mixed reaction to the HIV crisis (although she was miles bettter than her infamous successor, she was associated with the first major coruption scandal of the ANC when a whole bunch of money was given to write and produce a musical about AIDS), Foreign Secretary during the Mbeki era (which was chiefly notable for a widely derided "soft" approach to Mugabe and a rather successful tenure in Home Affairs under her ex. There is a weird reversal to the old Mbeki-Zuma dynamic; while Ramaphosa (representing the "Right" that Mbeki also represented) is charming and gregarious like Mbeki wasn't; NDZ has none of the easy and superficial charm that led Zuma to climb power - she is widely considered distant and aloof. She (much like JZ when cornered) is more populist than her revival, talking more of white monopoly capital and a need to revisit the economic consensus formed after apartheid. The main fear is that she will act as a defender for the widely hated Zuma, and there are many predictions that key parts of the ANC coalition, including the trade union COSATU and the South African Communist Party will breakaway; along with Zuma's enemies like former Finance Secretary Gordhan. She has tried to push away from this notion, arguing that she is her own woman. She has support from the Women's and Youth League.
there are five other candidates but who care. The worry for the party is that this conference will split them - either through one faction decidedly winning and the other sulking and splitting; or even worse a completely anarchic conference with no clear winner.
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