Johannesburg - The ANC is in a rush to repair the damage caused by numerous disputed list conferences where certain party members were irregularly nominated as ward candidates for the local government elections.
The irregularities appear to have been the trend across the country, with complaints being brought before the ANC’s appeals committees ahead of the national list conference this weekend.
Some of the allegations are that, in several branches across the country, some candidates were hand-picked due to association with senior provincial leaders, and that members of the ANC’s tripartite alliance in the SACP, Cosatu and the South African National Civic Association were excluded from the lists.
The disputes have in some instances been highlighted by infighting and violence in various provinces, among them Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Limpopo.
In Gauteng, for instance, the ANC has admitted to having had candidate lists-related problems only in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, which, according to the party, were amicably resolved last week.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the disputes have also led to killings.
The ANC, for the first time, had decided to announce its mayoral candidates ahead of the elections. ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe would not say yesterday exactly when this would happen. However, he said only the mayoral candidates for the metros and district municipalities would be announced.
This year’s elections would see a fight for the country’s major metros of Joburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, and Nelson Mandela Bay, and opposition parties have made their intentions clear to wrest these metros from the ANC.
On Wednesday, the ANCs national list committee was locked in a meeting at Luthuli House in Joburg to peruse and confirm the names of candidates who will contest the local government elections for the party.
The committee was expected to receive final lists from Gauteng and Limpopo on Wednesday, while other provinces were due to submit theirs before the national list conference resumes tomorrow.
Mantashe was adamant on Wednesday that there won’t be any further appeals, despite having previously ordered reruns of list conferences, where the party’s appeals committee found there was deliberate manipulation of the process.
“Actually, we are in stage five. We are done with the appeals now, there is no appeal beyond here,” he said at a media briefing on Wednesday.
“We are the national list committee, and what we do will be finalised in the national list conference.”
In North West’s Bojanala region, which includes Rustenburg, however, a list conference held three weeks ago was found to have failed to comply with candidate selection guidelines. The non-compliance or deliberate manipulation of the process was so serious that the ANC said the province would be brought into disrepute if it endorsed it.
As a result, the provincial list committee was ordered to rerun the conference by Thursday.
Mantashe added that political killings should be seen as criminal acts.
In the Northern Cape, the nomination of ANC councillors-elect in Kimberley was rigged and deliberately manipulated, the appeals committee found.
The Star has seen correspondence from Fikile Xasa, convener of the ANC’s national list committee, to the provincial secretary, Zamani Saul, confirming that the ANC Frances Baard list committee had failed to comply with national guidelines.
In the correspondence, Xasa confirmed irregularities at at least 20 of the 38 branches of the Sol Plaatje sub-region. The ANC’s adverse finding came after several branches in Frances Baard complained about the outcome of the list conference in Warrenton on April 25.
The Star