Earlier this month the African National Congress finalised its delegate allocations for the party's national conference in Mangaung in December. It also opened up the party's formal nomination process. Essentially, there are three options on the table.

Firstly, there is the somewhat shifting slate being promoted by the anti-Zuma camp. The ANC Limpopo Provincial Executive Committee has nominated Kgalema Motlanthe for the Presidency, Tokyo Sexwale for the Deputy Presidency and Fikile Mbalula as Secretary General. There seems to be some discord over the latter two positions however. The ANC Youth League said it would prefer Mathews Phosa as Deputy President while the Gauteng PEC did not support Mbalula's candidacy.

Secondly, there is a lobby pushing for continuity in the top three positions. Most provinces of the ANC Women's League have come out in support of Zuma, Motlanthe and ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe carrying on in those positions. COSATU has also come out in support of continuity - provided Motlanthe does not contest the ANC Presidency - though it wants Mathews Phosa replaced by Zweli Mkhize as party Treasurer General.

Finally, there is the pro-Zuma camp. The top three slate commonly mentioned for this camp includes Jacob Zuma as President, Cyril Ramaphosa as Deputy President, Gwede Mantashe as Secretary General. However, the Zuma camp appears to be holding the door open to Kgalema Motlanthe to return as Deputy President on a unity ticket. The ANC KwaZulu-Natal PEC has yet to declare its preferred nominations and provincial chairperson Zweli Mkhize has emphasized the importance of unity saying "It is impossible for a party that is divided to achieve unity of supporters and members of society in general if it is not itself united at its core."

This all leaves Kgalema Motlanthe in something of a dilemma. If he rejects the deal on offer from the Zuma camp and goes for the ANC presidency and wins that is one thing. If he stands and loses he may end up with no position at all - and would have probably done permanent damage to his future prospects. However, if he remains on as Deputy President he has a chance of securing the ANC Presidency next time around.

For the moment Motlanthe's appears to be waiting for the outcomes of the branch nomination processes before playing his hand. It is not clear though for how long the Zuma camp will keep their offer on the table. In assessing the choice he's going to have to make - and his prospects of securing the Presidency (or not) - it is useful to go back and examine some of the lessons from the ANC's 52^nd national conference in Polokwane, five years ago.  

The provincial state of play

The ANC leadership contest will essentially be determined by the as yet unknowable sentiment in the party's branches -shaped by the delegate allocations to each province. According to the ANC Constitution 90% of voting delegates at the national conference must be from branches. And, in turn, "The number of delegates to be allocated to each province to attend National Conference shall be fixed by the NEC in proportion to the paid up membership of each province."

Following Thabo Mbeki's election as ANC President in Mafikeng in 1997 the Eastern Cape's share of ANC membership increased from 11.6% to 21.4% in 2002 and finally to 24.7% ahead of the Polokwane conference in 2007. By comparison KwaZulu-Natal's share of the ANC membership was only 16.5% in 2007 - about the same as what it had been ten years previously.

Table1 : ANC membership by province from Mafikeng in 1997 to Mangaung in 2012:

Sources: ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe's Organisational Report to the 52nd National Conference, December 17 2007; City Press September 30 2012

The size of the Eastern Cape delegation did not prove decisive partly because Zuma was able to secure significant minority support in that province. In the provincial nomination conferences held at the end of November 2007 Mbeki was able to secure majority support in only four provinces: The Eastern Cape (61.8%), Western Cape (62%), North West (70.5%) and Limpopo (51.6%).

Zuma's strongest support came from KwaZulu-Natal, where he received 98.5% of nominations, Mpumalanga (87.7%) and the Free State (79.1%). He also enjoyed substantial support in Gauteng (73.7%) and majority support in the Northern Cape (56.1%). See Table 2.

In total Jacob Zuma secured 61.3% (2232) of nominations from delegates at the provincial nomination conferences, to Mbeki's 38.7% (1407). This more-or-less mirrored the final result at the national conference proper in Polokwane, a few weeks later: Delegates cast 2329 votes by secret ballot for Zuma (60.6%) and 1505 for Mbeki (39.2%).

Table 2: Results of the provincial nomination conferences ahead of Polokwane - November 2007

Source: Beeld, November 27 2007

Over the past five years there have been significant shifts in the provincial balance of power within the ANC. The size of the ANC membership, overall, has doubled from 621 237 to 1 219 871. It has remained more-or-less static in the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape though- and to a lesser degree the North West. ANC membership in other provinces has doubled, while in KwaZulu-Natal it has, controversially, tripled in size. See Table 1.

These shifts have seen a concomitant change in the provincial delegate allocations ahead of Mangaung. 23.7% of provincial delegates were allocated to KwaZulu-Natal as opposed to the 16.5% now allocated to the Eastern Cape. See Table 3.

Table 3: Delegate allocations to the ANC national conference in Mangaung:

In assessing the fairness of these allocations it is useful to compare them with the provincial share of the ANC vote in the 2009 national elections and 2011 local government elections. In the 2009 elections 19.4% of all ANC votes were cast in KwaZulu-Natal and in 2011 19.2%, so the province is somewhat advantaged in its delegate allocations. The Eastern Cape meanwhile accounted for 13.8% of ANC support in the 2009 elections and 15.2% in 2011, so it has not been unduly disadvantaged by its allocation of 16.5% of provincial delegates for Mangaung.

The one province that is, in fact, severely prejudiced is Gauteng, Kgalema Motlanthe's home province. Although it accounted for the largest share of ANC votes in 2009 (24.2%) and in 2011 (22.1%) it has only been allocated only 12.2% of provincial delegates at Mangaung due to its relatively low share of party membership. See Table 4.

Table 4: Proportion of ANC delegates compared to provincial support in 2009 and 2011 elections

* Calculated using Ward + PR (but not DC) votes

In 2007 the three provinces where Zuma's support was strongest - KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Free State - accounted for 34.4% of all provincial nominations. Due to the disproportionate growth of ANC membership in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal these provinces now constitute 43.1% of the provincial delegate allocations.

This means that as long as Zuma's support in these three provinces remains secure it will be difficult for the anti-Zuma camp to make up the numbers elsewhere. For example, if Zuma was to secure 100% support in KwaZulu-Natal and 80% support in Mpumalanga and the Free State the anti-Zuma camp would have to secure 82% of support in all the other provinces combined to secure a narrow (50.4%) majority of provincial delegates.

Slate-voting

Although it is too early to say for certain, it is very possible that branch nominations will once again follow a 60/40 split (if not closer) between the pro and anti-Zuma camps. This raises the possibility of a repeat of the sort of slate-voting that occurred at Polokwane in December 1997.

At Polokwane voting for the other top five positions all ran along the same 60/40 split as that which secured Zuma's victory over Mbeki. This meant that although they had forty percent support in the party the Mbeki camp were not able to secure a single position in the top six.

The Mbeki camp was also decimated in elections for the eighty other positions on the party's National Executive Committee. Of the 80 candidates elected 75 were from the list circulated by the Zuma camp ahead of voting, although 14 of these candidates had appeared on the Mbeki list as well. Only 5 candidates who appeared on the Mbeki list only made it onto the NEC: Cyril Ramaphosa, Trevor Manuel, Joel Netshitenzhe, Naledi Pandor and Sbu Ndebele - with the latter three barely securing election.

This comprehensive defeat paved the way for the subsequent splinter from the ANC. Among those on the Mbeki lists who failed to make it onto the NEC were Mosiuoa Lekota, Phillip Dexter, Neville Mompati, Willy Madisha, Mbhazima Shilowa (who withdrew his nomination before voting) and Smuts Ngonyama - all of whom were part of the COPE breakaway. Other big beasts from the ANC of Mbeki who failed to secure election onto the NEC- such as Alec Erwin, Sydney Mufamadi and Essop Pahad - have vanished into political obscurity.

Lessons

All this suggests that there are significant dangers for Motlanthe and the anti-Zuma camp in mounting a direct challenge for leadership of the ANC. If they try and fail, and voting proceeds along slate lines like last time, they'll have erased themselves from the equation. This will have the effect of severely weakening the internal ANC opposition to Zuma.

A victory for Motlanthe, though unlikely, would not be without its own problems especially if, again, voting ran on slate lines. It would leave him beholden to some of the more disreputable and disloyal elements in the ANC - while potentially alienating COSATU, the SACP and the KwaZulu-Natal ANC.

The great advantage for Motlanthe in accepting a deal with the Zuma camp is that it secures the unity of the party and keeps him in the game. The concern would be that the ANC and South Africa would be faced with "four more years, but worse" under Zuma. But Zuma will have no moral or political claim to a third term as ANC President. His authority will, as a result, soon start declining after he secures re-election as the party starts looking beyond him. As Deputy President Motlanthe will better placed than anyone, to profit from this shift.

This article was published with the assistance of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF). The views presented in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FNF.