President Cyril Ramaphosa’s rival in the race to head the nation’s governing party called for the review of a rule that compels members to relinquish their leadership positions if they’re found to have brought the organisation into disrepute.

Former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize will compete with Ramaphosa to lead the African National Congress (ANC) at a five-yearly elective conference that begins on Friday. Both men have been embroiled in scandals that have been scrutinized by the party’s integrity commission, whose findings will be delivered at the five-day gathering.

Ramaphosa’s critics argue that the so-called step-aside rule has been used selectively to neutralize his detractors. The party used the measure to suspend officials including ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule — one such adversary.

The integrity body also recommended Mkhize step aside last year after he was implicated in a tender scandal. He resigned as health minister in August 2021, while denying any wrongdoing, but remains a member of the ANC’s executive body.

“We are all complaining about this step-aside thing,” Mkhize, 66, told a rally of supporters in Soweto near Johannesburg on December 12. “You establish a rule that you can use to deal with some, while protecting others. That is a rule that is not ok.”

Ramaphosa, 70, has championed the step-aside directive as part of his efforts to clean up the party in the wake of his predecessor Jacob Zuma’s nine-year rule, when state corruption became pervasive in South Africa. A commission of inquiry into government graft found the ANC responsible for keeping Zuma in office and criticised Ramaphosa and the party for not doing enough to prevent the looting of billions of rands of taxpayers’ money.

Mkhize said the step-aside rule has been applied haphazardly without any input from the party’s rank and file, and in some instances it was applied retrospectively to eliminate leaders.

“You don’t run the organisation like that,” he said. “This is undermining the branches and their authority where the power of this organisation lies.”

The party’s National Executive Committee had been scheduled to discuss the integrity commission’s findings at a meeting last weekend, before deciding the reports would be presented at its upcoming conference. Under ANC rules, members who are asked to step aside are unable to stand for office.

“If the conference says we are accepting this recommendation that you should step aside, then you will immediately be disqualified,” Livhuwani Matsila, secretary of the party’s electoral commission, said in an interview. “There is nowhere to appeal if the conference accepts the recommendation because it is the highest decision-making body.”

The electoral commission has already disqualified former Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini from contesting position because she has a criminal conviction. Both the electoral commission rule that disqualifies compromised candidates and the step-aside rule are expected to be targeted for review at the conference, Mkhize said.

Ramaphosa and Mkhize are the only two names on the ballot to lead the ANC for the next five years, with the incumbent the frontrunner having secured the most nominations. In the event that both are disqualified, members would have to nominate other candidates from the floor.

Mkhize also criticised the party for dragging its feet when it came to implementing policies with the potential to address the rampant poverty and unemployment, and questioned the government’s plans to reduce the use of coal.

“We can discuss everything but closing down coal mines,” he said. “Those mines create jobs. We can use solar, wind and others, but coal-powered electricity is not going anywhere. We will not shy away from saying that.”

The former minister called on the ANC to implement its previously agreed resolutions to make it easier to expropriate land without compensation and establish a pro-poor state bank. He was non-committal about whether central bank’s mandate should be changed.

“There may be issues that you need to focus on where the Reserve Bank can support other mechanisms that will help the country to move forward,” he said. “We don’t have a bank that supports cooperatives, small businesses, but if such a bank came along we would expect that the Reserve Bank should look at it with the understanding that there are these challenges.”