‘Defectors plot ANC downfall’

President Jacob Zuma delivering the national message on the occassion of the 40th unniversary of the Soweto of the 16 June 1976 Students uprising,National Youth Day at Orlando Stadium, Soweto. 16/06/2016.Kopano Tlape GCIS

President Jacob Zuma delivering the national message on the occassion of the 40th unniversary of the Soweto of the 16 June 1976 Students uprising,National Youth Day at Orlando Stadium, Soweto. 16/06/2016.Kopano Tlape GCIS

Published Jun 19, 2016

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The ANC axed several of its executive mayors across the country as the party announced its mayoral candidates’ list for the upcoming local government elections.

This as independent candidates who have broken ranks with the ruling party were said to have met quietly across the country to thrash out plans for a new civic front.

Among those who were shown the door were Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele, eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo and Mangaung mayor Thabo Manyoni.

A stalemate over who should be mayor of Tshwane has seen the city become the only metro where the ANC does not yet have a candidate.

In Tshwane, where the ruling party is expected to face a stiff challenge from the DA, ANC regional chairman and mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and his deputy Mapiti Matsena are at loggerheads. An NEC delegation will visit Tshwane this week to try to resolve the issue.

The ANC has decided to retain Joburg mayor Parks Tau as its mayoral candidates to take on the DA’s Herman Mashaba.

Ekurhuleni regional chairman Mzwandile Masina has emerged as the mayoral candidates for that metro. Masina is deputy minister of trade and industry.

Danny Jordaan has been confirmed as the ANC mayoral candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay after he was initially imposed on the troubled region by the national leadership last year.

He will face off against the DA’s Athol Trolip in what is also expected to be hotly contested battle.

Secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, his deputy Jessie Duarte, national chairwoman Baleka Mbete and treasurer Zweli Mkhize are expected to lead campaign activities in the metro today.

In eThekwini, the party has gone for the region’s chairwoman Zandile Gumede as the mayoral candidate for Durban.

She had to fend off a challenge from KZN co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube.

The announcement took place as disgruntled ANC community leaders in various provinces - including North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape - formally got in touch with breakaway candidates in the Bojanala region of the North West, which registered independents under the umbrella of the Forum for Service Delivery to contest elections against the ANC.

This, according to those involved in background discussions, is a precursor to the formation of a new national body that “wants to restore the confidence of people and their hope in local government and public participation”.

The groups, which have mushroomed as result of the ANC’s shortcomings and grass roots discontent over the drawing up of the party’s electoral lists for councillors, are toying with the idea mooted by the SACP to create a new “People’s Front” as an alternative to the ANC.

They are united in their common dissatisfaction of the ANC’s disputed electoral lists and processes that have turned deadly in some areas with political killings and violence.

“We have developed a programme that we will unveil after the elections and further consultation with as many communities across the country,” said an ANC community leader from Rustenburg, who spoke to leaders from other provinces this week to discuss plans for a new body.

“We are not going to back the ANC. We cannot stand by as community activists when ANC leaders in provinces undermine the will of the people by imposing councillor candidates on them.”

The dissenters, in some areas, enjoy the support of ANC alliance partners, the SACP and Cosatu, and could pose a threat to the ruling party by rendering the ANC-aligned SA National Civics Organisation irrelevant.

The areas include Rustenburg, eThekwini and the Alfred Nzo region of the Eastern Cape.

The ANC has said that its members who stand as independents against the party will have automatically expelled themselves. In the North West’s Bojanala region, which includes Rustenburg, where the ANC’s ward councillors have registered as independents, the party has served them with suspension letters this week, together with region secretary Tokyo Mataboge.

But Mataboge has distanced himself from the grouping that formed the forum and registered as independent candidates.

However, the letters have not fazed the dissatisfied ANC members.

Bosa Ledwaba, an ANC Women’s League leader in the Bojanala region, said she supported and respected the wishes of her community, who elected their candidates, but that these were changed when the lists were handed to the provincial leadership and IEC.

“If the ANC supports corruption and manipulation of its processes then why should we continue to support it?”

SACP member in Rustenburg, Neville Moitse, vowed the ANC would not win the Rustenburg municipality if the party chose “factional politics over communities”.

“We are going to campaign against the ANC for as long as it is against communities. This is not the first time this is happening here and ours is to save our communities from being taken for ride. Our communities are entitled to elect whoever they want as their councillor, not to be coerced to vote for someone imposed on them.”

Although Cosatu said in terms of its congress resolutions it was unable to support any other structure that was not in alliance with the ANC, it would equally not back people who were imposed on communities. “We had a meeting with the provincial executive committee of the ANC where we raised our concerns about how the processes were not followed in finalising the councillor candidates list,” said Rustenburg Cosatu chairman Maleho Gaonakala.

“The ANC must open (talks with) disgruntled comrades who were chosen by their communities and look at their cases.”

The dissatisfaction about the choice of ANC councillor candidates has been largely downplayed by the ruling party, which has blamed some for serving “individual selfish interests”.

North West ANC has claimed there were no more than 20 complaints received regarding candidates lists out of 407 wards.

The provincial leadership said it had resolved to get to the bottom of the unhappiness and be on the same page with communities by convening meetings and ensuring resignation of those unwanted after the elections.

Nelson Hantise, chairman of John Taolo Gaetsewe Civic Organisation in Kuruman, Northern Cape, confirmed holding talks with disgruntled ANC community leaders, with a common understanding and objective to establish something collectively.

Hantise is a former ANC member who led a community protest in 2014 that resulted in the closure of schools for months in the area over lack of tarred roads. He said political parties, including the ANC, no longer represented community aspirations but personal agendas.

Meanwhile, Johnny Masilela reports that independent candidates in the North West and Mpumalanga this week claimed the ongoing disputed ANC candidates’ lists have triggered a steady flow of support into their ranks.

Speaking at the end of the manifesto launch of a loose alliance of independent candidates in the North West town of Tlokwe (Potchefstroom) last Sunday, spokesman Xoli Kham said attendance was beyond all expectations.

In the Mpumalanga town of Bushbuckridge, Cleopas Maunye, the secretary-general of the Bushbuckridge Residents’ Association (BRA), said the civic grouping was fielding no less than three former ANC leaders, among them an outgoing sitting councillor.

Sunday Independent

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