Johannesburg - Unsuitable ANC candidates who were wrongly placed on its candidates lists for the November 1 local government elections will be removed after the municipal polls.
This was revealed by ANC Gauteng head of elections and the province’s MEC for Human Settlements, Urban Planning and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Lebogang Maile, on Tuesday after the party committed itself to resolving the issues raised by its branches that were unhappy with the outcomes of the candidate selection process.
”We have also made a commitment that post the elections we will resolve the issues. Those who are not suitable to be councillor candidates or who were wrongly placed as our candidates, they will definitely be removed. The president has spoken on this matter and indicated that there will be an inquiry, which will look at these matters holistically, advise the leadership on how to intervene,” Maile said.
Maile was speaking outside St George’s Hotel and Conference Centre in Centurion, Tshwane, where ANC deputy president David Mabuza, treasurer-general Paul Mashatile, deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte and Gauteng deputy chairperson Panyaza Lesufi met voter district co-ordinators, branch elections co-ordinators, zonal co-ordinators and all councillors.
According to Maile, the meeting was also meant to resolve issues raised by 11 branches affected by the disputes in the capital city.
“We are the only party that had a public participation process. It’s not just an internal ANC process so the introduction of the public participation process has also brought other dynamics and complications. We are a learning organisation, we will learn from this experience. We will definitely do better,” he promised.
Maile said the ANC for the first time had a public participation element in its candidate selection process, which experienced challenges.
”It came with some challenges. As a result, there are few individuals who are not happy but we believe it’s important that we don’t just brush them aside. That’s why the national leadership of the ANC is here today, to give them confirmation and affirmation that indeed their issues will be addressed as the president has said,“ he explained.
A few weeks ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that as with all new processes and structures its candidate selection process had teething problems and the governing party also received troubling reports of alleged misconduct, transgressions of list guidelines and manipulation of lists.
“The ANC will investigate all these reports and allegations. Where necessary, we will institute disciplinary measures,” Ramaphosa told Cosatu’s central committee meeting last month.
Political analysts warned that there would no easy fix for the ANC, even after the municipal polls.
Dr Ralph Mathekga said the process of involving the community was a major shift in the ANC’s process.
He said the process has a lot of potential and looks good but that if the ANC does not do well in the elections there was mostly likely going to be a lot of fighting.
”Conversations will continue beyond the elections and it will drag slightly longer than the election process,” said Mathekga.
Professor Bheki Mngomezulu said it was too little – too late for the ANC to resolve some of the issues as the Electoral Commission of SA had stated guidelines and deadlines.
“That ship has already passed. They can only draw lessons from what is happening right now,” Mngomezulu said.
He said the ANC had poorly communicated the outcomes of the candidate selection process.
Mngomezulu warned that if the ANC forces some of its candidates who are products of a manipulated process to resign after the elections it might be risky as there was no guarantee that it would retain the seats in by-elections.
Political Bureau