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From where I am sitting I am impelled to consider the ANC presidential contest, essentially a two horse race between Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, done and dusted.
After the last two provinces, Limpopo and KZN, declared their nominations result on Monday it was clear that CR17 was in pole position. Not only was CR17 in the lead but the margin of his lead looked quite unassailable.
Looking at this race from all angles and trying to impound all probable permutations I just cannot see how NDZ can come back to claim the upper hand during the actual voting. I am certain that many other people share my view. If that were to happen it would simply render the whole process of electing the party president farcical as branch nominations are deemed to carry the wishes and preferences of the party’s grassroots. I am well aware that branch nominations do not necessarily equate to actual votes but it would be disingenuous to claim that nominations do not serve as a pointer of what is likely to transpire during the conference. As things stand, and barring the miraculous, everything points to a CR17 win.
In 2007 when Jacob Zuma contested the party leadership with Thabo Mbeki he won the nomination race in six out of the nine provinces. A similar pattern followed in 2012.
So far CR17 has garnered 1862 branch nominations compared to NDZ’s 1309 which translates to a margin of 553 in his favour. And then there is the 223 votes from Mpumalanga which DD Mabuza decided to put in abeyance until the conference proper and this is where things get interesting.
Those praying for what now seems like an unlikely NDZ win have resorted to making outrageous permutations based purely on wishful thinking. Their projections are devoid of logic or any shred of scientific input. The reasoning goes as follows;
NDZ will win because most of the branches that nominated her will have more than one delegate at the conference.
The 223 "Unity" votes from Mpumalanga will vote for her
All the votes from the Youth and Women's Leagues will go to NDZ
Some delegates from branches that nominated CR17 will actually vote for NDZ
The reasoning above is as desperate as it is laughable. It is like a soccer analyst predicting that a team lying second on the log trailing the leading team by 15 points with five games to go will win all their remaining games while the other team loses all theirs. While I do not completely rule out the occurrence of some of the above I just cannot see how that will decide the final outcome of the voting. Any rational and objective person will acknowledge that the above factors will cut both ways such that the net effect becomes minimal given CR17 strong position as reflected in the branch nominations.
It is the height of idiocy to assume that only those branches that nominated NDZ will be bringing larger delegations without adducing any evidence to that effect. Same applies to David Mabuza’s “Unity” votes. Statistically speaking and based on the results of the branch nominations from that province CR17 will receive about 107 of the “Unity” votes while NDZ gets about 116. Any other projections to the contrary should be based on tangible hard facts and not on wishful thinking.
It is also foolhardy to assume that NDZ will get all the votes from the Women and Youth leagues. Taking a cue from the results of KZN and MP where it was widely assumed that NDZ will win with wide margins I expect CR17 to garner enough support from the leagues to see him through. In fact I expect CR17 to get at least 15 votes from both the Women and Youth leagues respectively. It must be borne in mind that not all the delegates from the leagues are in favour of the Gupta project.
Lastly, the issue of delegates going against their branch mandate will not have a significant impact on the final results as it will affect both sides. If anything this only helps to shed light on the corrupt nature of ANC politics. The question that needs to be asked is why should a delegate vote contrary to the mandate given to him/her by the branch ? I have heard some people talk about the intense lobbying that will be taking place between now and the conference. Those in the know say this “lobbying” mainly takes the form of bribery of branch delegates. Taking all these things into account I still say an NDZ win will be nothing short of a miracle. But as we all know miracles rarely happen these days. At the end of the day the people (ANC branches) have spoken. Or haven't they ?
