Phaahla, with 601 votes against Phaahla's 519. However, Mathale did not complete his full term either as Premier or as ANC Provincial Chairperson. In the weeks before the conference which re-elected Mathale, several newspapers had reported that Mathale's administration faced severe financial shortfalls and that Mathale had requested a R700-million bailout from the National Treasury after commercial banks withdrew their credit lines. In early December 2011, five provincial departments in Mathale's administration, including the provincial treasury under MEC David Masondo, had been placed under administration by the national government. Mathale's supporters later claimed that this move rendered Mathale "a lame duck premier" in subsequent months. In January 2012, after Mathale's re-election as ANC chair, the full scale of the province's administrative and financial problems emerged. Both the Auditor-General and the national Ministry of Finance reported publicly about the R2-billion budget shortfall faced by the Limpopo government, which they said was caused by a lack of spending restraint, including significant expenditure on contracts marred by procurement irregularities; both appeared to blame the crisis on the province's political leadership. In February, a spokesman for the Hawks said that Mathale, his wife, and Julius Malema were under investigation on allegations of corruption and business irregularities. Other state agencies undertook their own investigations into procurement irregularities. Later in 2012, Mathale's business partner, Selby Manthatha, was charged with corruption, fraud, and money laundering; the National Prosecuting Authority alleged that Manthatha and other members of his family had bribed Malema to obtain government tenders. Succession as Premier In December 2012, the ANC's 53rd National Conference re-elected Jacob Zuma as ANC president. At the conference, Mathale stood unsuccessfully for direct election to the ANC's National Executive Committee. Several months later, allegations of corruption and maladministration in Limpopo continued to receive a great deal of national attention; some members of the ANC in Limpopo also complained that Mathale had sown division in the party. Others, however, suggested that opposition to Mathale was primarily a form of retribution for his opposition to Zuma's re-election. On 18 March 2013, the ANC National Executive Committee announced that it had dissolved the entire Provincial Executive Committee of the Limpopo ANC, prematurely ending Mathale's term as Provincial Chairperson. Fresh leadership elections would be organised by an interim leadership corps appointed by the national party leadership. ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said that the Mathale-led committee had been dissolved "for displaying totally un-ANC behaviour