South Africa: The ANC conference, the risk is binary - Nomura

Henrik Gullberg, Research Analyst at Nomura, suggests that things have changed over the past month for South African politics ahead of the ANC elective conference.

Key Quotes

 “On 13 October we recommended positioning for downside in USD/ZAR over a six-month horizon and over the 16-20 December ANC elective conference. At the time the consensus view was very much biased in favour of a win for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ), the ex-wife of current President Jacob Zuma, and someone who is seen as maintaining the power network of the Zuma administration, with deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa (CR) playing catch up.” 

“This has changed over the past couple of months as NDZ has failed to drum up support during the campaign, resulting in CR having amassed a lead of around 279 in terms of branch nominations (assuming all UNITY nominations in Mpumulanga go to NDZ as directed by the province’s leadership). However, the actual lead is likely to be narrower as NDZ may benefit from support from the bigger branches in the mainly rural provinces, which will send more than one delegate to the conference, and as she is also expected to gather more non-branch delegates (around 10% of the more than 5,000 delegates).”