Mbeki guns for Ramaphosa

I would argue that we don't fully appreciate the internal reckoning that is about to happen in the ANC. Up until this point, President Ramaphosa, whether you like him or not, has been able to consolidate his power within the ANC. And because he seemed relatively more popular than the ANC, he was able to be the center of the party. But after these election results, not only has the ANC's image been dented,

But the credibility of the president has also been dented. And that is going to create a struggle for power within the ANC that we haven't seen for a long time. I would say, probably since around the build-up to the 2017 Nasrec conference, when the ANC was deeply divided between Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and now President Cyril Ramaphosa. We know that leadership battles have been extraordinarily damaging.

For the ANC. In the build-up to the Polokwane conference, we had the Zuma vs. Mbeki moment, which threatened to tear the party apart. But bear in mind, at that time, the ANC still governed most of South Africa, so they could patch up the divisions by distributing power amongst the different factions. In 2017, there was an extremely fractious elective conference, and we saw

How that divided the ANC. And we've seen splinter groups: the EFF breaking away, MK Party breaking away. It feels to me like the ANC could be entering a moment of reckoning similar to a Polokwane moment or a Nasrec moment. And that has huge consequences for South African politics. One of the proposals that has already been raised is that, well, let's go back to a Sunday.

Times report over the weekend that said that President Ramaphosa was considering resigning. Now, Ramaphosa was quick to dismiss this report, but the journalists who wrote that report typically have pretty good sources within the ANC, those Sunday Times journalists. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. And this isn't the first time we've heard the president is thinking of going and staying, will he, won't he? So those rumors are swirling. Then we now have a

Situation in which there is a call for an early elective conference to move the December conference of next year up earlier, perhaps early next year, so that an entire new ANC leadership can take the helm. Again, even if these things don't actually materialize, even if President Ramaphosa does hold on to power for a bit longer, even if there isn't an early elective conference, the fact that these proposals are even being made out in the open, the fact that former