Cape Town - The ANC is set to field the youngest councillor candidates since the dawn of democracy. This is thanks to its new selection process, allowing the public to directly elect candidates even if they do not have membership cards.
It has been described as a game-changer by the party’s head of the ANC national electoral committee, Kgalema Motlanthe. This new process seems to do away with members who have held councillor positions for more than one term. Previously, candidates nominations were processed through regional lists conferences and finalised by the national lists committee.
The party has faced scrutiny from community members who were at loggerheads with their councillors. Communities accused the party of imposing candidates on them and that some councillors influence branches thus always getting voted to be councillor candidates.
After the 2011 local government elections, a commission found there were irregularities in how the party selected candidates. “This is part of the ANC’s renewal,” said Western Cape head of communications Sifiso Mtsweni.
“Branches elect four candidates and they do manifestos to communities they intend to serve. Then the community votes for who they want, unlike before where the community was only presented with a candidate and address their concerns with no real power to decide if the candidate can stay or go.”
He said over the years, councillor candidates were accused of manipulating the party’s processes and bribed members to vote them in. “The community now has the power to decide, this is not a whole new process. We have been doing this because this is what the people have always wanted and as a party that listens, we did what is right.”
Fifty-five percent of voters are young people and the country is a youthful country. The older generation seems to be struggling to convince communities to elect them as the Weekend Argus observed different gatherings over the past week organised by aspirant candidates. They depended on mostly card-carrying members who most of them are old as them. Young people, on the other hand, reached out to both old and young. Social media was also instrumental in driving their campaigns.
Questions have been raised, however, if youth means quality leadership.
Mtsweni said that this process would be used to elect members of Parliament.
“The ANC has started having a younger face, this is proven by the number of young people in Parliament. We will, however, pair our young councillors with experienced PR councillors so they can be shown governance as we do not want to have young people for the sake of having them. This is not happening only in the Western Cape where you see young people emerging as candidates. It is happening across the country.”
The new process did not go ahead without resistance from the old generation who were seen losing last week when the party was completing its list of candidates. Some tried to run away with ballot papers to disrupt counting as it happened in Philippi. Others threatened candidates from running against them.
Political analyst Asanda Ngoasheng agrees that the new strategy does give communities the power of their vote back.
“The problem with the party system has always been that it leads to people working hard for the party rather than focusing on delivering services to the people who voted for them in the first place.”
“There are 20 million South Africans who did not vote in the last elections meaning there are 20 million-plus votes up for grabs for those who choose to campaign as independent candidates in the local and national government elections,” says Ngoasheng.
“These changes have the potential to change the way politicians behave. We have already seen that the ANC is aware of the threat of these changes because they have offered to allow candidates who have been voted in to join the ANC and operate under the ANC banner.
“The ANC has not done enough to breed a trustworthy group of young people ready to lead because the Youth League has basically been dead since Julius Malema left it a decade ago.“
Weekend Argus