Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma

Ramaphosa needs to integrate powerful competing factional interests and persuade other ANC presidential contenders to throw in their lot with him if they are to beat Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma President Jacob Zuma's former wife and his chosen candidate to succeed him as party leader (AC Vol 58 No 1 Power struggle goes nuclear)...

President Jacob Zuma and his allies are widely seen as responsible for the fraudulent inflation of ANC numbers in the province to ensure the election of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to the presidency at December's national conference (AC Vol 58 No 8 New script in KwaZulu-Natal)...

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's presidential campaign team fears the ANC won't win enough votes to govern on its own and is already horse-trading to persuade key EFF members to align with it rather than the DA...

It is essentially a two-horse race between Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma the President's former wife and outgoing African Union Commission Chairperson and Cyril Ramaphosa Deputy President of both ANC and country a billionaire businessman and former miners' union boss...

Zuma's plan is to cast his ex-wife and former Africa Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as a valiant fighter against 'white monopoly capital' and its black 'stooges' meaning her ANC presidential rivals and critics (AC Vol 58 No 1 Power struggle goes nuclear & Vol 58 No 8 Zuma's edifice starts to wobble)...

EFF strategists believe that since the ANC's Tripartite Alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions is fracturing the ANC whether under Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or current Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will perform poorly in the 2019 elections poorly enough for the EFF to govern in coalition with the DA and other opposition parties in a grand anti-ANC alliance...

Zuma's favoured successor and the person still seen as most likely to succeed him as ANC President Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is battling to establish herself as a popular choice...

Such success would also set the scene for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him as ANC President at the party's Elective Conference in December...

Firmly in the Zuma camp he could be a safe option if the party rejects Zuma's ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at its National Elective Conference in December...

Now however it is so deeply divided that it may not be able to deliver the expected votes to Zuma or his handpicked successor his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the ANC's National Elective Conference in December...

Such a reshuffle could also see Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma appointed to the cabinet as a means of increasing her heft as a presidential candidate...