Is Gwede Mantashe losing his bite?

When ANC boss Gwede Mantashe got Jessie Duarte as his number two in the ANC secretary-general’s office in 2012, a few colleagues and I were worried that the relationship would not last.

Duarte is like a tenacious bulldog and takes no nonsense, we agreed. And Mantashe cut his teeth as a trade unionist in the masculine and often aggressive mining industry. The combination seemed like a recipe for disaster.

A few hours before the ANC’s Mangaung elections, I spoke to Duarte’s predecessor, Thandi Modise, about her working relationship with Mantashe.

Modise gave me a naughty giggle and said, in her usual warm and motherly voice: “I don’t think he is used to working with women.”

But our concerns have been proven wrong and perhaps Mantashe has finally learnt to work with women.

In fact, many would agree that Mantashe’s political persona has undergone some conscious transformation since 2012. His newly found affinity for suits is just one example.

He also launched the Gwede Mantashe Foundation – often a sign that a politician is preparing for higher office.

On the downside, the metamorphosis has been accompanied by what appears to be the erosion and weakening of his political office.

Ahead of the ANC national general council last year, there was a lobby to kick Mantashe out of office. He survived it and came out looking stronger and ready to assert his authority.

But Communications Minister Faith Muthambi and the SABC’s Hlaudi Motsoeneng were not fazed.

Mantashe may be regarded as South Africa’s de facto prime minister, but not to Muthambi and Motsoeneng, who have continued to defy Luthuli House.

This week the ongoing defiance reached a climax when Mantashe’s detractors pulled ANC Western Cape leader Marius Fransman back from suspension and took him on the party’s campaign trail without Mantashe’s knowledge and approval. As if to rub it in Mantashe’s face, President Jacob Zuma appeared alongside Fransman.

It got me thinking: If Thabo Mbeki had made the ANC’s presidential office more powerful than that of the secretary-general when Motlanthe was still in charge until 2007, then Zuma this week in effect turned Mantashe into the most celebrated clerk at Luthuli House.

On the upside, the anti-Zuma lobby in the ANC has struggled to find the face of its campaign for the leadership succession race next year and Mantashe’s ongoing run-ins with the Zuma bloc places him in a favourable position, while Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa seems nonchalant.