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The election of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini as the new president of the ANC Women’s League makes her the third most powerful woman in the ANC after national chairperson Baleka Mbete and deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte.
Dlamini will also become the right-hand woman of a female candidate that the league is expected to back as ANC president at the end of President Jacob Zuma’s term in 2017.
The league’s 2017 ambitions place a significant responsibility on Dlamini’s shoulders. The ANC has never had a female president since its formation in 1912.
Dlamini was the first women’s league leader to publicly open up the succession debate when she said Zuma’s successor had to be a woman. She added that she would support African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or Mbete.
League members are unlikely to expect the female presidential campaign to fail, particularly as Zuma has already stated that South Africa is ready for a female head of state.
However, during his opening address to the league on Thursday, Zuma warned that opportunities for women to lead the ANC would not be handed to them on a silver platter.
But Dlamini’s election was not without drama. There were claims of money exchanging hands at the conference and delegates being bribed with blankets, tracksuits and food parcels to vote in her favour. Her supporters also accused Angie Motshekga’s faction of doing the same.
Leading up to the national general elections last year, opposition parties had accused Dlamini of distributing food parcels and suggesting that those who failed to vote for the governing party would lose their social grants.
Dlamini has brushed off these allegations, saying she had a duty as social development minister to help poor people.
Dlamini is feisty and has an appetite for public battles. Earlier this year, she took to Twitter to lambast journalists she accused of pushing the ANC to the edge.
She was irked by journalists who attended President Zuma’s state of the nation address and chanted “Bring back the signal” in Parliament after cellphones were jammed.
“You are pushing us too much and you are hardening us day by day, we are at the edge right now. If you want to know us, carry on,” read her tweet.
Dlamini, a staunch Zuma supporter, was born in Nquthu and grew up in Zuma’s home town of Nkandla.
She graduated from the University of Zululand in 1989 with a BA (Honours) in social work.
She moved up the ranks from KwaZulu-Natal regional secretary of the ANC Women’s League to the national office as deputy secretary-general of the league and was later elected to the position of national secretary in 1998.
Dlamini served for two terms until 2008. This made her the longest-serving secretary-general of the women’s league.
Dlamini, who is also a member of the ANC’s national executive committee and the national working committee, was appointed to President Zuma’s Cabinet as deputy minister of social development in 2009 and was then promoted to minister in 2010.
On Friday, the soft-spoken Dlamini said she would bring energy to the moribund league, which she hopes will ascend to greater heights.
Her supporters have described her as a “credible, dedicated and mature cadre”.
