Durban - ANC bigwigs descended on Durban this weekend for the party’s National List Conference, which will determine who makes it on to the list of 200 candidates nominated to represent the party in the National Assembly after next year’s general elections.
The party held the conference in uMhlanga, north of Durban, on Friday and wrapped it up on Sunday before proceeding with an extended national executive committee (NEC) meeting.
To kick-start a week of ANC activities in Durban, the party will on Tuesday celebrate its 107th birthday since its inception in 1912 at the Ohlange Institute in Inanda, which was founded by the ANC’s first president, Langalibalele Dube.
This will be followed by its election manifesto launch at the Moses Mabhida Stadium, on Saturday. The ANC says it expects up to 140000 supporters to descend on the stadium and its outer fields.
ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte said that in compiling the list they were looking for demographic representation and gender parity.
“We are also going to be making sure that the ANC’s national democratic revolutionary gains are represented in the people who are going to be on this list.
“A truly non-racial list will also have to be the outcome of the discussion,” Duarte said.
She said that although they would end the list at 200, there had already been 800 names put forward.
“The people with the highest number of votes tallied across the country, who make it into the top 25%, those names remain untouched.
“Below that we begin to discuss what the needs of the ANC are in the various parliaments.
“We look at skills and experience and we hope that we will be able to retain at least 50% to 60% of people with experience of having been in Parliament or legislatures before,” Duarte said.
She said all of those nominated started at branch level and that there was not a single name that did not start at the bottom of the party’s democratic processes.
On Sunday afternoon the ANC’s acting national spokesperson, Dakota Legoete, said that the list was still being vetted.
“The list will be released once it has been cleared by the NEC and once it has been vetted, but it will be in due course.
“It is still undergoing scrutiny to look at the issues of integrating morality and credibility and to ensure that we comply with the Electoral Act, so that none of us on the list are in conflict with the law,” said Legoete.