Having witnessed the ANC Gauteng province concluding its conference last week, the other two provinces in line are Kwazulu-Natal and North West.
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal will hold its 9th Provincial Conference at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban from 22 to 24 July.
All the three provinces have produced contenders who are women in finance positions who may meet in their next budget council as leaders of their respective provinces.
The Gauteng province already has Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko as the deputy chairperson after she has held the position of provincial deputy secretary since the 2018 conference. She is the province’s Finance and e-Government MEC.
The Kwazulu-Natal province’s current Finance MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube is promoted as a “game changer” by her supporters as this will mark the first time in the history of the ANC that a woman will lead the province that hosts the Zulu Kingdom.
Dube-Ncube, a strong contender to run against current Premier Sihle Zikalala, and her supporters are of the view that the current investigations by the Hawks won’t change their direction of support.
Her political and work experience comes in handy in the upcoming conference this weekend, having worked as the Speaker of the municipality and Ambassador to the Cech Republic. She is definitely confident that she will emerge as the winner.
Meanwhile, the North West Province has Finance MEC Motlalepula Rosho lobbying to be the chairperson of the province in the upcoming provincial conference, scheduled to take place from 12 to 14 August this year.
This conference was been planned to be hosted in 2019 after the national general elections, and it was postponed many times as a result of the failure of the Interim Provincial Committee to schedule a conference under the leadership of Hlomani Chauke and Suzan Dantjie.
The race for the chairperson’s position seems to be between Nono Maloyi and Rosho.
The support of Nono is based in Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, that has Lazzy Mogosi as their deputy chairperson. Whereas Rosho’s strength is based in Dr Kenneth Kaunda, in which the two candidates are coming from.
There is also a number of slates with provincial secretaries coming from the Bojanala region that has more than 300 delegates making it more than 35% of delegates to the provincial conference.
The names of Louis Diremelo and Sipho Dial are among those contesting the position of provincial secretary with the support of ANCYL divided between the two.
Diremelo is a former mayor of Bojanala, former regional chairperson and secretary of the Bojanala region at some point in the ANC.
With the “women on top”campaign gaining momentum on a daily basis, chief lobbyists of the Rosho campaign said they are certain that she will emerge.
“We are confident that Rosho will emerge victorious in her quest to be elected as the chairperson. It is time now that we have women in strategic positions who also have a lot to offer in the renewal of the ANC in the province,” said a source.
A media statement by Thabang Letsogo Mangaane, who is believed to be one of the chief lobbyists of Maloyi’s campaign, claimed that they do not belong to the #adiwele faction that seems to be all over the country.
The media statement reads: “We distance ourselves from all negativity that seeks to undermine the NEC of the ANC. Our campaign henceforth remains N12 #kenako. The agenda of the RET forces to remove, to sought divisions and distort our campaign by us with #adiwele will not deter us”.
The statement further read: “We urge our supporters to refrain from the use of #adiwele moving forward. This is in line with]giving clarity in our message ahead of the elective conference,” said Mangane.
ntombi,nkosi@inl,co,za