Johannesburg - The ANC in the Eastern Cape is set to remove all candidates who were allegedly nominated fraudulently to represent the party in the upcoming local government elections.
This was the commitment made by the party’s provincial chairperson Oscar Mabuyane while he was being interviewed a local TV station on Tuesday.
Mabuyane made the statement while commenting on the brutal murder of Fort Hare University student Nosicelo Mtebeni, and reports of gross manipulation of nomination lists ahead of the candidates registration with the IEC on Monday.
He said, however, that there had been few incidents of violence related to the nomination of candidates in the province, but even those incidents were concerning to him and his party.
“Out of the 700 wards in the Eastern Cape, we had less than 10 reported cases of violence. It is still concerning. The ANC is not synonymous with violence,” Mabuyane said.
He added that his party’s extended provincial executive committee meeting, which lasted for three days, was faced with a number of complaints of nomination manipulation.
“It is for that reason we decided to investigate all those cases. We are going to act, and there will be consequences. People must respect ANC processes and guidelines,” Mabuyane said.
He also acknowledged that very few young people were nominated to the list, as were women, but they had to increase the number of women to meet the threshold of 50% women representation set by the ANC.
“I think the absence of the ANC Youth League contributed to the poor representation of young people in the nomination lists. But I think the establishment of the Youth League’s task teams will assist us to allow the youth to occupy their rightful place in society.
“We met the 50% representation of women in our lists to change the patriarchal realities. It is a concerning issue,” he said.
Mabuyane also condemned the brutal manner in which Mtebeni was killed, allegedly by her boyfriend, who confessed to police that he killed her because she had been cheating.
Mabuyane said his government was to step up measures to fight gender-based violence in the Eastern Cape.
“I visited the family and saw the impact the loss of Nosicelo had on all of them,” Mabuyane said.
Political Bureau