End of the line for Gwede Mantashe

ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe has announced he is stepping back from the party’s leadership succession race and will be retiring.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) National General Council (NGC) on the next ANC elections, Mantashe said: “I am not going to be available,” he said.

“I am old. I am more than 70, so I’m a retiree.”

Gwede Mantashe has held two top leadership positions within the African National Congress ANC as part of the party’s National Officials formerly known as the Top Six or Top Seven.

Mantashe has held a top leadership position in the ANC since 2007, when he was elected as secretary general at the 52nd National Conference.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2012 and held the position until 2017.

At the 54th National Conference in December 2017, Mantashe was elected as the National Chairperson. He was re-elected for a second term in December 2022 and currently serves in this capacity.

However, Mantashe further added that the current event, taking place in Boksburg, East of Johannesburg, from 8 to 11 December, is not the time and place to discuss the party’s next leaders. 

“People will put their names in the hat. They want to be elected, but that is premature at this point in time. The time for that will come,” Mantashe said. 

Rather, the party’s NGC is a platform to review the ANC’s progress and chart its direction, ahead of the next National Conference. The ANC will not discuss leadership succession during the event. 

Briefing the public on the state of readiness for the event on 7 December, party secretary Fikile Mbulula said that the NGC would not be side-tracked by succession talks. 

“This NGC is not going to discuss succession: that discussion belongs to branches at a certain stage, relevant to it, which is in 2027,” he said.

Even so, Deputy President Paul Mashatile, Mbulula himself and National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza are said to be vying for leadership of the party in 2027. 

20 years in ANC leadership

Mantashe began his working life in the mining industry, where he co-founded the Witbank branch of the National Union of Metalworkers (NUM) and became the NUM’s national organiser in 1988. 

He left NUM in 2006 and was appointed Executive Manager of Strategic Initiatives at the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), where he worked for two years.

His career in politics began when he was elected chairman of the South African Communist Party in 2007 and served on the party’s central committee. 

It was in this same year that he was elected Secretary General of the ANC – a position he held from 2007 to 2017, before taking on the role of National Chairperson. 

Mantashe currently serves as Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources.

He was previously Minister of Mineral and Energy Resources from 2019 to 2024, and before that, he was Minister of Mineral Resources from February 2018 to May 2019. 

His political career has not been without controversy, as Secretary General during former President Jacob Zuma’s tenure, Mantashe has been implicated in the Zondo Commission of inquiry into state capture. 

He was accused of engaging in a corrupt relationship with BOSASA, involving the acceptance of R650,000 for political favours. Mantashe continues to challenge these allegations.