But Mbeki and his people were gravely mistaken if they thought that
they had won the support of Magashule and his followers. At the Free
State’s provincial nominations conference in late November, Zuma got
more than three times the number of votes that Mbeki could muster,
despite earlier indications that the winner would be decided by a
narrow margin.^6 Zuma had somehow managed to win Magashule’s
backing.
Kganare said that Magashule could not face Smuts Ngonyama, one of
Mbeki’s closest allies, after the nominations conference. ‘As soon as it
was announced that the Free State would endorse Zuma and not
Mbeki, Ace disappeared without talking to Smuts,’ he told me.
Kganare said that things would have turned out differently if the
national leadership had listened to the southern camp’s grievances
about vote-rigging and other irregularities, seeing as that faction had
resolved to back Mbeki. He was not in the least surprised that
Magashule threw his weight behind Zuma. ‘Ace knew that if Mbeki
won, he would never become premier,’ Kganare said.
After Zuma thrashed Mbeki at Polokwane, with the Free State’s help,
Magashule must have reckoned that he had earned his pound of flesh.
But there were further opportunities for him to conclusively win over
the newly elected ANC president.
After Polokwane, Zuma still faced a mammoth threat in the form of
the corruption charges against him emanating from the 1999 Arms
Deal. It was a battle that would require considerable monetary
resources, a problem for the perpetually broke Zuma.
In July 2008 , a month before Zuma was set to appear in the
Pietermaritzburg High Court, he attended the Free State’s provincial
conference in Parys.
nora
(Nora)
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