Speaker 1: That's no account on dd Mabuza the man, and that
Speaker 1: is a politics associate editor for e WNCD.
Speaker 2: My dear, she joins us now instudio.
Speaker 1: She's been doing qlas all afternoon because who better to
Speaker 1: speak to about about this than her city. Maybe let's
Speaker 1: start with why is everyone on my social media sending
Speaker 1: you condolences?
Speaker 2: Good evening?
Speaker 3: Sorry for being a being happy go lucky there, But
Speaker 3: let me just first start with this. He passed away
Speaker 3: at the hospital here in Santon. The delay in the
Speaker 3: statement from the presidency was because his wife was traveling
Speaker 3: from Barberton from the farm where he lives, so it
Speaker 3: took a while from a way to get you, so
Speaker 3: out of respect, they waited for her to see to
Speaker 3: see him before they made the formal announcement to the public.
Speaker 3: Why am I getting condolences? I've always loved DDBA. It's
Speaker 3: one of my favorite politicians. I've gotten along very well
Speaker 3: with him. I've had interesting engagements. So I think it's
Speaker 3: that I've been very clear that out of all the
Speaker 3: characters in my political landscape, DD Mabuza was one of
Speaker 3: my favorites. I mean, I always think about him in
Speaker 3: terms of the rise to twenty seventeen and we'll talk
Speaker 3: about I'm sure the role he played in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: but going all the way to Bush where he came
Speaker 3: from as well to watch him engaging with his people,
Speaker 3: I just I think I took in who he was
Speaker 3: as a politician and because there was a particular set
Speaker 3: of notoriety attached to the man, so I think that
Speaker 3: fascinated me. But for me, he was always friendly. I
Speaker 3: always say to people, gave the best tags. Lovely gentlemen,
Speaker 3: relatively quiet, but yeah, and also very clear about like
Speaker 3: when we're doing this as far as the ancies concerned, Ye,
Speaker 3: your the charity of thoughts about actions in the party.
Speaker 1: Who was diddy to his people, particularly the people of
Speaker 1: hum puma Langa because he was premier before he became
Speaker 1: deputy president. What did they think about him? How did
Speaker 1: they see him as their leader?
Speaker 2: I think it depends on who you ask.
Speaker 3: His premier, but it's also a c chairpist in Puma
Speaker 3: Langa and I think what is scary? And if you
Speaker 3: look at journalist account, there is Msilikazi who wrote about
Speaker 3: Bumlanga and what was like. There's another journalist his name
Speaker 3: is Escaping at the moment who's also written about in Bumlanga.
Speaker 3: So there's a difference of opinions about what it was like.
Speaker 3: But I think if we're being honest, words like fear
Speaker 3: were used.
Speaker 2: That he had a strong hold of the province.
Speaker 3: He was inescapable in terms of how much he controlled
Speaker 3: life in plan political life in Burmaalanga.
Speaker 2: I mean Boma Langa.
Speaker 3: Was notorious for political killing, so there a lot of
Speaker 3: insidious issues if he made that stem from the political
Speaker 3: space in Pumaalanga. He didn't try and refute this at
Speaker 3: some point when you were the pre president where people
Speaker 3: conducting interviews would lay claim and killings at his door
Speaker 3: and he would come out saying that there's no proof
Speaker 3: of those things, that no court had found him guilty
Speaker 3: of those things. He did try and take a stand
Speaker 3: against some of the claims that were being made against them.
Speaker 2: So depending on.
Speaker 3: Who you ask, and I find that that's something with politicians, Commoso,
Speaker 3: is that every time you speak to a different person,
Speaker 3: you're a different perspective of who particular leaders are. But
Speaker 3: I do think for the longest time when he was
Speaker 3: in Malanga, fear was a matter.
Speaker 2: In fact, the conference is of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Towards the twenty twenty two conference and Malanga having its
Speaker 3: own provincial conference, they kept saying we're in tripping you.
Speaker 3: We're free now and part of that was because they'd
Speaker 3: been able to get rid of people who are aligned to
Speaker 3: ma Wooza at last saying that his hold of the
Speaker 3: province is now gone. So that told you something that
Speaker 3: even when he was at national office, his grip and
Speaker 3: his influence on the province was felt by some people
Speaker 3: who thought they couldn't be outside of him. So he
Speaker 3: remained a factor hu lumblarge even when he was outside
Speaker 3: of the province at some point.
Speaker 1: And I know it may be difficult to tell, but
Speaker 1: do we know how the man amassed that's so much
Speaker 1: power and influence, you know, I mean I've been reading
Speaker 1: about him, and I mean it says from math teacher,
Speaker 1: you know, a black consciousness movement enthusiast and read a
Speaker 1: deep part of that, and then he rises to being
Speaker 1: this powerful, mysterious man in that space.
Speaker 3: And that's part of this massively powerful block that was
Speaker 3: around for my President Jacob Zuma called the Premier League.
Speaker 3: I think it's the unions, the student politics, but it's
Speaker 3: also the unions.
Speaker 2: He rose in the unions.
Speaker 3: Right up to start. You must never forget that the
Speaker 3: unions in their lines are incredibly powerful. So there is that,
Speaker 3: but it's also coming into Loqui where he was elected
Speaker 3: into the nec of the ANC and where he stepped
Speaker 3: back to become an ex official and also official. You
Speaker 3: are that because you're holding a provincial position, so you're
Speaker 3: not an ANC member by capacity of the position that
Speaker 3: you hold. So he became a chairperson of Boma lianes
Speaker 3: that rise into being in power and under Zooman being
Speaker 3: excuse me as somebody aligned with the former president that
Speaker 3: I think were part and parcel of that picture.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about the Kingmaker, because that's really who
Speaker 1: then he became or we got to know him.
Speaker 2: As at the national level.
Speaker 1: At national level, Yes, who is this man and what
Speaker 1: is he doing and what's his role? In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: it was very interesting because the past two twenty t seventeen,
Speaker 1: I mean I went everywhere because you're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what is the lay of the land and what
Speaker 1: is the picture. I remember seeing him in Bush and
Speaker 1: they'd been and he was a mysterious figure back then
Speaker 1: had already spent months in the hospital alleged poisoning and
Speaker 1: he came back, which is where that the label of.
Speaker 2: The cat comes from.
Speaker 3: But he uh in the in the leader of to
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, you'd go and you ask where you alarund
Speaker 3: You know he's a Zuma man, and you think he'd
Speaker 3: want to push for dot I mean Zuma to emerge.
Speaker 3: But I don't know if people remember you say, hey,
Speaker 3: you want unity? We nominating unity? Where people went to
Speaker 3: seeing Puma Langa's regions, what do they nominate? What do
Speaker 3: they want? On the ballots of the anc and then
Speaker 3: all of them wrote unity. That also speaks about the
Speaker 3: kind of control that he had over branches in his province.
Speaker 2: Where you hear you need.
Speaker 3: To I mean, of course, part of the story around
Speaker 3: Burma Langa being one of the largest provinces was being
Speaker 3: told that it's.
Speaker 2: It's inflated with bogus branches.
Speaker 3: Again, that speaks to the man and the notoriety attached
Speaker 3: to the man as it is, but he becomes that
Speaker 3: figure that refuses to show his hand for the longest
Speaker 3: time in the lead up to Nazarek and at Nazarek,
Speaker 3: just before we are made to believe that he sends
Speaker 3: a PEC to a doctor and Mini Zoom event that
Speaker 3: he's leaning that way, but of course that was not
Speaker 3: to be. He goes to Nazarek and he flips on
Speaker 3: the so called ends slate supporting the Sierra slates.
Speaker 2: But there were talks.
Speaker 3: I must be honest if I reflect now when as
Speaker 3: I talk about it, the word back and forth about
Speaker 3: how he's meeting with people and my past us, as
Speaker 3: spoke to Guenamantasha this evening. Gudamantasha is the current chair
Speaker 3: of the NCBA. He also served as chair during the
Speaker 3: term with Didi Mabuza, and Gudamntacha said to me, you know,
Speaker 3: after conversations, we're able to persuade each other certain things.
Speaker 3: And in twenty seventeen we persuaded him and he agreed
Speaker 3: to tilt Bumlang in a particular direction to stop it
Speaker 3: from going in a particular way. And that's how that
Speaker 3: watershed conference for the Sas seventeen slate came about. And
Speaker 3: I think that people will tell you he put country
Speaker 3: duty first and that he saved the country. But they're
Speaker 3: people who call themetrator. Some people have said to me,
Speaker 3: we've decided to forgive him out sign of himself. And
Speaker 3: these are people who are alarmed with the so called
Speaker 3: radically gonnament transformation at block that said he betrayed them.
Speaker 3: They spoke to him at the time. He's never really
Speaker 3: explained himself to the country. He's also and that's who
Speaker 3: he is. By the way, He's a quiet person who's
Speaker 3: not going to give interviews to everybody.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: I tried to everybody about what drives particular decisions. You know,
Speaker 3: so a lot of people will say to you that
Speaker 3: he had made a decision and they spoke to him
Speaker 3: about it, explained himself to his comrades, and those who
Speaker 3: were able to find peace and move on found peace
Speaker 3: and moved on. I suppose to Esmachus Shulis, somebody was
Speaker 3: very close to him once upon a time, and marcas
Speaker 3: Uli said, leave the politics.
Speaker 2: Those are politics.
Speaker 3: Those were not about the person and the person that
Speaker 3: was never affected by the politics. He was a good
Speaker 3: person that related well to him politically did what he did,
Speaker 3: that's politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then just took us through Mabuza post twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. You know, he almost moved into the shadows
Speaker 1: and almost you know, became forgotten. If one may say,
Speaker 1: was he still the big A and C man that
Speaker 1: we knew him to be. Was he working the ground
Speaker 1: in that area?
Speaker 2: Where was he?
Speaker 3: I think before you get to twenty twenty three, you
Speaker 3: need to look at Mabuza during the presidency eight years
Speaker 3: he became. His help in ascending Ramaposta led to his
Speaker 3: own ascendency to the high office. He was the country's
Speaker 3: number two citizen, the deputy president. And I think the
Speaker 3: Mabuza was a deputy president was quite meek. And I
Speaker 3: think I can make an argument that the difficulty of
Speaker 3: being a deputy president it's a ceremonial you'll do what
Speaker 3: the boss lets you do.
Speaker 2: In essence was the president. So yes, he did this
Speaker 2: AIDS National Aids Council. Yes, I know he gave me.
Speaker 3: He gave me a coffee book, a photobook of all
Speaker 3: the work that used to do.
Speaker 2: But he was somebody that wasn't seen.
Speaker 3: In fact, he drew controversy around having to go to
Speaker 3: Russia for treatment because he did struggle with ill health. Again,
Speaker 3: the poison plots kept coming back and forth during that period.
Speaker 2: So who he was to me in the years of
Speaker 2: deputy president.
Speaker 3: Was quite meek and an attempt to make a comeback
Speaker 3: in the ANC in twenty twenty two was too little
Speaker 3: too late in my eyes when he said his interested
Speaker 3: in running, it was too little too late. Then he
Speaker 3: goes away to uh goes into retirement. And also quite quietly,
Speaker 3: it wasn't a fight to get diddy Ma Booza to
Speaker 3: resign his deputy as as deputy president alway, not even
Speaker 3: as an MP because then now Solma person needed to appoint.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a fight to get him to resign as
Speaker 3: an MP. He quietly did it and the announcement actually
Speaker 3: again his loyalty to his people in Boma lang was
Speaker 3: actually made at a funeral, I think his brother's funeral
Speaker 3: in Pomalanga saying yes I am resigning, I'm going to
Speaker 3: step down. And I think that is who the man is.
Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of the people are spoken to us
Speaker 3: say we'll say to you he was loyal to the
Speaker 3: ANC to the very end and we saw that last year.
Speaker 3: Though he went quietly back to Barberton and his farm
Speaker 3: and some people speak about some political life in Boma Langa,
Speaker 3: we actually saw him at a time when people were
Speaker 3: pulling away from the ANC from a President Jacobszuom and
Speaker 3: the likes.
Speaker 2: Dd Ma Booz is one of those who.
Speaker 3: Came out in twenty twenty four campaigning saying people must
Speaker 3: vote for the A and C. Gweneman Touches said he
Speaker 3: saw him a few weeks ago spoke to me saying
Speaker 3: that they spoke not too long ago and you were
Speaker 3: saying to them, what resources do you need for the
Speaker 3: AEC's campaign next year. Whatever you require, I remain here
Speaker 3: for you. I will help you. He's got these bakkies
Speaker 3: so that you always see a big AC events.
Speaker 2: They belong to d Mabuza. And when.
Speaker 3: Isn't the bakies the resources and he said yes, and
Speaker 3: he said you'll refurbish them and you'll make them available
Speaker 3: for the ANC's campaigns. So he's always been loyal to
Speaker 3: them and he'll come out for them when asked to
Speaker 3: do so. And based on the conversations he engaged with
Speaker 3: them still
Speaker 1: See the My dear Ewn's Politics editor, I thank you
Speaker 1: so much for spending your time with us.