Pretoria - A re-run of the ANC’s Top six should be taken in order for the party’s members, voters and society at large to have confidence in the mandate of those who occupy the most influential seats of power in South Africa at a party political level.
This is according to ANC member Vincent Myeni, who earlier lodge urgent court proceedings to declare the 54th national elective conference null and void.
This application, however, did not make it to a hearing in the urgent court at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, as it was simply by agreement removed from the roll on Tuesday.
Judge Norman Davis was told by Myeni’s advocate, Francois Botes, that this was by agreement as there were “further developments” after deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte filed her responding affidavit in the matter.
He, however, did not want to elaborate on the “developments” apart from saying there was not enough time to file all the replying affidavits. “There might be a possibility that the parties can come to some sensible agreement in order to dispose of the application in its entirety,” Botes said.
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While he said it could again be placed on the opposed court roll, to be heard in a couple of months time, it is doubtful that the matter will serve before court again.
Myeni earlier filed court papers in which he asked that the decision confirming the results for the ANC’s top positions to be set aside and that a fresh election had to take place.
Judge Davis asked whether the matter had become settled. Botes told the judge that it was not yet settled. “There are discussions between the parties and their legal representatives...But the application won’t see daylight soon unless something drastic happens,” he told the court.
Myeni meanwhile stated in his papers that the election process which was adopted by the ANC and the Elexions Agency was tainted with irregularity and that it lacked any credibility.
“I have sufficient reason to suspect that fraud was perpetrated in the manner in which the election process was implemented….,’ he stated.
He made it clear that the application was not aimed at nullifying the process in terms of which the entire National Executive Committee was appointed, but only the Top six.
According to him there was a conflict of interest as one of the Elexions Agency’s officials - which had to oversee the elective process, did not disclose that one of the Top six had fathered her child - a claim which was vehemently denied by both parties.
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“They were involved in a romantic relationship, the existence and details which should have been disclosed to the delegates….This constitutes sufficient reasons to believe that she was not entirely impartial in which she has conducted her obligations…. The mere fact that she was tainted with a conflict of interest renders the entire election process invalid.”
Myeni said another key issue “which strikes at the heart of this application” is the manner in which the credentials of voting delegates were attended to and verified. He said the issue of the missing 68 votes has not been adequately been explained by the ANC.
“The unsatisfactory and unaccepted manner in which the 68 quarantined votes were attended to casts a suspicion upon the legitimacy of the entire election process itself. It is not in the broader public interest to condone the irregular and unaccepted manner in which the elections process was attended to. The entire process is therefore suspect to foul play and material irregularity,” he stated.
But Duarte, in her answering papers, rejected these claims as being without foundation. She labelled the urgent application as an abuse of the court process. She said Myeni had no business in launching this application as he has no interest in the outcome of the elections of the top six. “It is worthy to note that none of the 4 776 delegates at the conference have associated themselves with this application.”
She said there can never be a “re-election” of the top six, without the re-election of the NEC in its entirety.
On a practical level, she said, it had cost the ANC more than R50-million to organise the December 2017 national conference and the financial implications of a re-election will be severe and impractical.
She said everything was done above board and she labelled the application as frivolous.