Former ANC president Jacob Zuma says he is available for election as ANC national chairperson at the party's December conference.

In a statement released shortly before midnight on Monday, Zuma also threw his weight behind his former wife and current ANC NEC member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ) as his preferred person to contest again for the governing party's top position.

Dlamini-Zuma lost a close contest to incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa at the December 2017 Nasrec conference and recently confirmed she would like another shot at it. 

Zuma believes she “remains the most capable to lead the ANC”, citing her track record in the party, the many positions she has occupied in the government since 1994 and her “leadership capabilities and her understanding and knowledge of the ANC among others”.

Zuma said those opposed to NDZ's candidature for ANC president have “dismally failed” to present a better candidate but instead have thrown around names of “those who have a lot of money”. 

If branches nominate him, Zuma announced, he will heed the call and stand to return to the ANC top six, which he has not served in for the past five years.

In the race to chair ANC NEC meetings, Zuma joins incumbent Gwede Mantashe, ANC Limpopo provincial chairperson Stan Mathabatha as well as SA Communist Party deputy general secretary David Masondo. 

Mathabatha has been given the nod from the PECs of his home province and Gauteng while Mantashe got the thumbs-up from the PEC of his home province, the Eastern Cape, with Masondo getting nominations directly from branches.

Owing to the ANC step-aside rule and electoral committee regulations, Zuma, who has been charged with corruption among other charges and is standing trial, is not eligible to stand for a leadership position.

Zuma also “challenged” the call for old leaders like himself to sit back and allow a younger cohort to take the baton of leading the ANC.

In his view, the younger generation of leaders within the party are not going to get a free pass simply because of age when some of them who have been given an opportunity to lead have nothing but disastrous results to show for it.

He took a veiled swipe at ex-ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala and former provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli for presiding over an ANC that was bruised badly during the 2021 local government elections.

Zuma said he believed more in a “generational mix” than “generational takeover”.

With the ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee yet to pronounce on their preferred national officials come December, an exercise expected to happen this week, it remains to be seen if Zuma raising his hand for national chairperson will find favour or not. 

Last month, the freshly elected provincial officials of the ANC visited Zuma as his KwaDakwadunuse homestead in Nkandla.  By Mawande AmaShabalala, Times Live