edition of the Sunday Independent.^7 And in 2017 , in the build-up to
the ANC’s national elective conference at Nasrec, Sunday Times
political scribe Qaanitah Hunter also wrote that Magashule had been
the ‘ANC provincial chairman since 1994 ’.^8
There are no indications that Magashule has ever tried to state the true
facts. And why would he? The inaccuracy is a useful footnote in the
narrative that portrays Magashule as the province’s top dog since the
advent of democracy.
Nevertheless, the ANC’s vision of having one person serve as both
premier and party chairperson, which may have stemmed the tide of
rival power blocs, was now in tatters. While Lekota held on to the
province’s executive decision-making powers, Magashule and his
faction now ran the party’s affairs.
Lekota made some efforts to accommodate the northerners in the
provincial government. In 1994 , Magashule was appointed as the Free
State MEC for economic affairs and tourism in Lekota’s first cabinet.
But the fault lines in the province’s power dynamics ran deep, and any
peace that this may have brought about was bound to be tentative and
fragile.
Twala documented how ‘the aggrieved northerners led by Matosa and
Magashule made life difficult for Lekota and accused him of ruling the
Free State illegitimately’.^9 According to Twala, a year after the first
provincial cabinet was constituted, the political cold war escalated to
open warfare when Lekota first suspended housing MEC and
Magashule ally Vax Mayekiso over a dodgy property deal. Mayekiso
had allegedly used his position as MEC to put pressure on and threaten
the owner of a fuel station in Welkom to sell his business. It had then
emerged that Mayekiso’s wife had a stake in the deal.
nora
(Nora)
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