paid campaigns

Deputy President Paul Mashatile “soft launched” his campaign to be ANC president on Tuesday, 22 April, at a commemorative Soweto gathering to honour uMkhonto weSizwe combatants.

- 

Attending the event, News24 reported, were people carrying banners reading “Mashatile iThemba Lethu” (Mashatile our hope).

“Although Mashatile denied campaigning,” News24 wrote, “#MashatileIthembaLethu was trending on X [that] afternoon”.

Daily Maverick asked Findlay and Murmur to take a look at the hashtag this week.

Murmur's analysis revealed a “single network of paid influencers — or ‘buzzers’ (i.e., users single-mindedly focused on reposting specific users to a far greater extent than would normally be expected)” who likely worked on the Mashatile campaign.

ANC culture frowns upon early overt campaigning for the leadership. Mashatile’s spokesperson, Keith Khoza, told Daily Maverick: “The DP [deputy president] was never involved in any campaign and therefore did not need to engage influencers.”

Yet the Mashatile online campaign was not subtle. Daily Maverick identified at least 15 accounts tweeting repeatedly in support of Mashatile only on 22 April. One, @arena_maz, tweeted at least 59 times about Mashatile on that day.

Other campaigns for ANC politicians

Here’s where things started to get interesting. When Daily Maverick analysed the accounts of those users tweeting in bulk about the virtues of Paul Mashatile, it soon became clear that he was not the only politician they were hyping up.