2005-11-20,+ANC+spins+web,+boils+cauldron,+Carter,+Adams

= ANC spins web of intrigue =

Smear campaigns, scandals and accusations are nothing new in the ruling party. Down the years, candidates for succession have disappeared from the political scene

Saturday Star, Johannesburg, November 19, 2005

By Chiara Carter

Sex, lies, plots and spies: South Africa's ding-dong ANC succession tussle has it all in dollops. Last weekend's rape allegations are but the latest dramatic development in the ongoing murky drama of power struggle and intrigues.

At the epicentre, of course, stands Jacob Zuma, who is facing a corruption trial, but as ANC deputy president and a rallying point for a disparate collection of anti-Mbeki forces he remains in the running to succeed Mbeki.

Waiting in the wings and lurking in the shadows are a host of jostling forces, spin doctors, business magnates and potential rivals for the presidency - and some say even some skeletons that are yet to be revealed.

Succession has for the most part been an intrigue-ridden and even bloody affair in the ANC through the decades, but this time the stakes are higher and the machinations are playing out in public.

Zuma and his supporters argue that the former deputy president is the victim of a political plot and this is what has led to his being first probed and now tried for corruption relating to the multibillion-rand arms deal with the blessing of the very president who years back warned against those who would be "fishers of corrupt men".

There are some who say that Zuma was in fact undermined well before the arms deal investigation began.

Indeed, senior ANC leaders have heard Zuma claim he has felt victimised for the better part of 15 years - a claim that apparently raised eyebrows at a recent National Working Committee meeting.

Part of this sense of being marginalised has to do with Zuma having been deployed after 1994 in KwaZulu Natal rather than taking up a post in Mandela's cabinet.

In the run-up to 1994, far from being a candidate of choice for radicals or the Left, Zuma was branded a sellout for not supporting militant action against Inkatha of the kind favoured by, for example, fiery Midlands leader Harry Gwala.

There is much to suggest that the ANC's alliance partners have pinned their colours to Zuma's mast on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy ..." rather than because Zuma has advocated economic polices the SACP and Cosatu would favour.

But there is also a good deal of old history coming to the fore. Many of the linkages and tensions that characterise the ANC can be traced back to the liberation struggle era - whether it is intelligence versus military or cabal versus Africanist.

But so complex is the intertwining history of various ANC leaders and cadres, and so fluid are the party's power blocs, that more than one figure regarded as being in the Mbeki or Zuma camp then pops up on the other side of the fence.

Adding to the impression that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the criminal allegations against Zuma, a political conspiracy cannot be ruled out is a sense of déjˆ vu about much of what is playing out.

Remember the fate that befell other presidential aspirants and political opponents through the years. And the many, many claims of plots, smears and even little forays in the direction of sex scandal.

Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Bantu Holomisa: all in one way or another were felled as rivals.

Fact is, the ANC's recent history has been punctuated by whiffs of scandal - drug money, arms, diamond deals and accusations of womanising, not to mention labelling opponents spies and the like.

Of course there are those who claim that Mbeki and his supporters have themselves been the victims of conspiracy. The most elaborate of these claims was contained in a dossier that surfaced at the time of the Hefer commission.

The dossier reeled off a list of powerful politicians and bureaucrats who it claimed were aiming to take over the country.

Its author was never identified, although one Bheki Jacobs, the ANC intelligence operative who years ago played a major role in exposing the arms deal corruption claims and who from time to time proffered intelligence to the Presidency, was not only blamed but under bizarre circumstances also arrested, only to be released later.

Now Jacobs is something of a bete noir for former intelligence boss Mo Shaik, who is a strong supporter of Zuma and was Bulelani Ngcuka's accuser. And so it goes.

To get a handle on this endless spiral of smoke and mirrors, claims and counter-claims is a daunting challenge.

All these less than salubrious intrigues take place against a background of patronage and wealth accumulation that has led some to refer to the liberation movement as ANC Inc. Whether it is Mzi Khumalo or Brett Kebble, there are claims of business funding not only within the party but within its factions.

Meanwhile, corruption itself has become something of a weapon of war.

Zuma's supporters would certainly contend this is the case with the history of the arms deal investigation where certain names fell off the map while others were tarnished.

The extent to which factionalisation has entered the state structures has been apparent from the row over the NPA and its future, and the tensions that recently erupted in the National Intelligence Agency.

While lurid headlines are the order of the day and Zuma and his supporters are engaged in a fight for his political life, the names of other possible contenders for the presidency have begun to circulate behind the scenes. But right now all are keeping their heads down - and who could blame them?

From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=131&fArticleId=3001738

= **Party keeps the cauldron on the boil ** =

Saturday Star, Johannesburg, November 19, 2005

By Sheena Adams

Plots, paranoia and propaganda have been themes running through the past decade of leadership tussles in the ANC. While many believe Jacob Zuma to be the leading casualty of a succession war in the ruling party, he certainly was not the first.

Plots to overthrow, sideline, overlook, discredit and even kill have all - at one time or another - thrown dark shadows over the dealings of the ANC.

Probably the foremost plot was the one announced by then safety and security minister Steve Tshwete in 2001 when he alleged that businessmen Mathews Phosa, Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale were planning to oust President Thabo Mbeki.

It emerged that discredited former youth leader James Nkambule was behind the startling allegation, which the three vehemently denied.

Tshwete said the government was also investigating allegations of a broader disinformation campaign against Mbeki that suggested the president was behind the assassination of former SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani.

National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi also entered the fray, saying police were informed by a "senior ANC member" that the following year's national conference could be a "bloodbath" and it was the police's duty to thoroughly investigate potentially dangerous conspiracy claims.

About a year later, Tshwete apologised to Phosa, Ramaphosa and Sexwale, saying they had been exonerated by police investigations.

Hani himself had tried to challenge Mbeki for the party's deputy presidency back in 1991. The two were later pressured into standing down to make way for Walter Sisulu.

Two years before the allegations of a businessmen's plot, Phosa was in the news after an internal ANC commission led to his being deposed as Mpumalanga premier, allegedly for his divisive leadership style. Led by Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula (now Minister of Home Affairs), the commission pronounced Phosa an "autocratic leader", in effect sidelining him.

A month before Tshwete's shock announcement, Phosa himself cried "plot", accusing the ANC of having employed lies to terminate his premiership.

Years before, in 1997 at the ANC's national congress in Mafikeng, Phosa initially made himself available for election as deputy president but then withdrew in favour of Zuma.

Sexwale's decision to leave politics, also in 1997, followed a public spat with Mbeki over allegations that the then deputy president was behind a drug probe into Sexwale shortly after the 1994 elections.

Former president FW de Klerk later confirmed in newspaper reports that Mbeki had approached him to conduct the probe.

Newspapers published excerpts from a tape recording of a meeting between De Klerk and Sexwale in which the former president told Sexwale there were "long knives out for you" within the ANC.

In that same year, '97, a co-leader of the United Democratic Movement, Bantu Holomisa, claimed that there was an ANC conspiracy to discredit and, maybe, kill him.

He appealed to President Nelson Mandela to ensure his safety.

The so-called "Winnie letter" emerged in 2001, ensuring that a good dose of sexual intrigue was added to the cauldron of political conspiracies.

The letter - to Zuma from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, then president of the ANC Women's League - was leaked to the media.

In it she claimed that at an ANC National Working Committee meeting in 2000 Mbeki had accused her of spreading rumours that he took Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa's wife out one night and returned her home at 5am.

Madikizela-Mandela's letter also connected Mbeki with four other women, including ministers and deputy ministers. She denied spreading the rumours.

In 2002 the p-word ("president") emerged yet again, this time amid reports Mbeki had used a long-awaited bilateral meeting between the ANC and Cosatu to berate union leaders for trying to force him fromoffice.

Commentators at the time said Mbeki's attack was aimed at trying to encourage loyalty pledges from the trade unions - in the same vein as Zuma's baffling public statement not long before that, denying he had presidential ambitions.

Described by many as having jumped the gun, Zuma spoke of "unverified, so-called intelligence reports" that he intended to challenge Mbeki for the presidency.

sheenaa@incape.co.za

From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=131&fArticleId=3001744