Durban — As ANC electoral committee chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe descends on KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday to open nominations, the party’s provincial leadership was adamant that over 90% of branches had nominated Dr Zweli Mkhize for the position of party president.
At a media briefing on Tuesday, the party’s provincial secretary, Bheki Mtolo, said Motlanthe and his electoral committee would visit the province on Thursday to open nomination boxes.
He said the process would be administered by an appointed independent agency, Elexions Agency, which deals with ANC conferences. This would be done in the presence of the regional observers.
He said the process would be transparent and open, and all qualifying branch nominations would be counted manually one by one.
Nevertheless, the party said it was more than confident that branches would confirm the decision by the regions that Mkhize must be the provincial nominee for the president’s position.
Mtolo said that when the province pronounced Mkhize’s name, it had consulted widely with branches through regional chairpersons and secretaries so there would be no surprises when the electoral committee opened the boxes on Thursday.
The party announced that about 700 branches had qualified for the conference, but the final report would be received by the secretary’s office on Wednesday. Mtolo said for each of the top six position, the person who received the most nominations would be announced as a provincial nominee.
He said the same process would apply to the first 200 names that were nominated for national executive committee seats. The structure, which takes the final decisions in between conferences, is composed of 80 members.
Mtolo said that their engagements with other provinces were going well, and that after Thursday’s confirmation of Mkhize’s nomination by the branches, they would take his name to other provinces to start the bargaining process.
“We will speak to other provinces and hear how they concluded their nominations. For instance, they might say give us the deputy president’s position, then we will support your presidential candidate and so on,” said Mtolo.
The province recently met the Limpopo and Mpumalanga leadership but has not disclosed the outcomes of their discussions.
With the much-anticipated national elective conference just over a month away, it looks like the contest for party president will be a two-horse race between Mkhize and current president Cyril Ramaphosa. Both leaders received endorsements from the party’s leagues at the weekend.
Mkhize was endorsed by the party’s youth wing structure, which endorsed Paul Mashatile as his deputy, while Limpopo chairperson Stanley Mathabatha was earmarked for the national chairperson position and current Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula for the position of secretary-general.
The Veterans and Women’s Leagues chose Ramaphosa. The endorsement of Ramaphosa by the Women’s League came as a blow to both Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Lindiwe Sisulu, who have made themselves available for the position of president. At the 2017 conference, the Women’s League threw its weight behind Dlamini Zuma, who narrowly lost to Ramaphosa.
Mtolo called on delegates to behave at the conference and commended those who were campaigning for positions for not insulting others with the intention of discrediting them.
Meanwhile, Motlanthe’s committee has given those campaigning for positions until Thursday to submit their bank statements.
The exercise is aimed at stopping the buying of delegates at the elective conference.
Daily News
