Polokwane — Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on how the ANC embarked on damage control after the exuberant behavior of presidential challenger Jacob Zuma's supporters at the ANC conference on Sunday.
To no one's surprise, Thabo Mbeki, president of the ruling African National Congress Party and his deputy, Jacob Zuma were nominated tonight for the position Mbeki now holds.
The mood in the cavernous hall was a lot lighter than the previous day, no doubt the result of the damage control mode the party seniors went into after what they conceded was a bad day at green, black and gold rock on Sunday.
They "deployed" Jeff Radebe, Minister of Transport and the call-out guy to put out any and all kinds of party and government fires to talk to the media. He was his usual droll self, but acknowledged what many were denying: that fissures in the party came to the ferocious fore on Sunday. But he and other ANC spokespeople assured the media that all had been worked out, even to the extent that the offending hooligans had been so properly chastised and reminded of proper behavior according to ANC culture that they voluntarily turned in the partisan (J-Zed) signs they had unconstitutionally paraded.
So, it also came as no surprise that after intense standoffs (and near fisticuffs in some cases) with the security forces that insisted media weren't allowed into the plenary hall for the nominations in the only open session of the day, the media were allowed in, again to sit on the floor in front of the ANC top policymakers on the stage.
In the most forward table, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma exchanged little out of earshot tidbits (or maybe observations about the hungry media in front of them), smiling and coming close to slapping each other on the back. It was quintessential damage control charm and it worked for the bevy of photographers who inched closer and closer to the stage in a way no U.S. security would ever have allowed. But except for the occasional "Sit down!" (both from me, now seated once again on the floor, and the security), the photographers snapped away at the happy couple of contenders on the stage and I can't wait to see the pictures in Tuesday's papers!
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Other nominations went on, along with a few withdrawals, the most dramatic of which was that of multi-millionaire Tokyo Sexwale, in favor of gender advancement. The former Robben Islander and premier of South Africa's major commercial hub, Gauteng, (which includes Johannesburg), threw his lot behind Zuma and abdicated in favor of Baleka Mbete, speaker of the National Assembly, the lower House of Parliament. This drew big applause from people behind me whom I couldn't see because I was on the floor, but whom I assumed included many women.
Despite all the efforts at damage control, there is still a lot of tension in the air, and a conference running a day behind schedule. The nominations that took place tonight were supposed to have happened this morning, with voting beginning later on. But due to the challenge to electronic ballot counting, voting will only begin at 6 am (local) Tuesday (11 pm EDT). With manual ballot counting of only the top six slate, voting of the now certified 3,900 delegates is likely to have us up late still another night, waiting for results that some rumours say are too close to call. But then, other rumours say it's not. Which makes for a very exciting, if not exhausting process.
