ANC lists WCape candidates

Published Mar 12, 2014

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Aziz Hartley

FORMER ANC MECs, members of the party’s youth wing and people who left the party to join Cope are on the ANC’s list of candidates for the provincial legislature.

Top of the list submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission yesterday is ANC provincial chairman, former MEC for transport and public works Marius Fransman, who is also a deputy minister.

SACP provincial secretary Khaya Magaxa is second on the list, followed by former education MEC Cameron Dugmore, who is adviser to Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel.

Richard Dyanti, who was MEC for local government when the ANC controlled the legislature until 2009, is fourth on the list, and former health MEC Pierre Uys seventh.

Fransman, Dugmore, Dyanti and Uys served under then-premier Ebrahim Rasool before the ANC lost control of the province to the DA in 2009.

Back in the ANC fold are Mbulelo Ncedana and Moegamat Majiet – both of whom left the ANC to join Cope when it was formed in 2008. Majiet had been the ANC’s secretary in the Boland, while Ncedana was leader of the Dullah Omar region – the party’s biggest in the Western Cape.

Ncedana, an MPL, has lost his Cope membership, allegedly for failing to pay his fees.

Before the formation of Cope, the ANC in the province was racked by internal battles between factions aligned to Rasool and then-provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha. The battle was a microcosm of the ANC’s internal strife in the run-up to its Polokwane conference in December 2007 when support for ANC president Jacob Zuma saw Thabo Mbeki replaced.

Months later Mbeki was recalled as president of the country. Rasool was told to resign, deployed to Parliament and replaced as premier by then-finance MEC Lynne Brown. Rasool went on to become ambassador in the US.

Brown and Skwatsha have been MPLs since the DA took over. They are on the ANC’s list for Parliament.

Former sport and recreation MEC Chris Stali is also on the Western Cape list, as is MPL Max Ozinsky. The pair were regarded as Skwatsha’s closest allies during the spat with Rasool.

Others on the list include MPLs Dorothea Gopie and Milicient Tingwe and members of the disbanded Western Cape ANC Youth League. They include Siyazi Tyatyam, who was regarded as a member of the Skwatsha faction, Ndoda Ngemntu and Muhammed Khalid Sayed, who heads a task team appointed to rebuild the league in the province.

ANC Women’s League members on the list include provincial secretary Judy Hermans, Ellin Prins and Miriam Sidina. Number 34 on the list of 41 is Sipho Kroma, who was ANC provincial secretary at the time of the internal strife.

ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile and Cope head of elections Dennis Bloem could not be reached for comment.

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