Tension rises over ANC nominations
Scores of KwaZulu-Natal ANC branches have lodged complaints at the office of secretary-general Gwede Mantashe as tension escalates over nomination processes.
Scores of KwaZulu-Natal ANC branches have lodged complaints at the office of secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe as tension rises over nomination processes.
Branch general meetings to nominate leaders ahead of the ANC’s December elective conference got under way at the weekend and were marked by accusations of intimidation, use of police and other state resources and manipulation of processes.
Leaders backing Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s candidacy said 30 ANC branches in the eThekwini region, 19 in the Lower South Coast, 11 in Harry Gwala, eight in KwaDukuza and several in Inkosi Bhambatha and other regions had lodged complaints.
Sthembiso Mshengu, a spokesman for the group that went to court and successfully overturned the 2015 ANC provincial elective conference that elected Sihle Zikalala’s provincial executive committee, said fraud and unconstitutional methods were being used to sideline those who did not support Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed her former husband, President Jacob Zuma, as president of the ANC.
The group had urged the national leadership to appoint interim leadership in KwaZuluNatal because it feared the provincial executive committee would manipulate the nomination process, said Mshengu.
“Branch general meetings are being manipulated. Here in eThekwini, members who are in good standing are taken off the voters roll and prevented from attending meetings and when they do the metro police are let loose on them,” he said.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesman Mdumiseni Ntuli was not available for comment on the complaints on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, SACP provincial secretary Themba Mthembu said his party had lodged a complaint with the ANC about the way some of the branch nomination processes had been conducted. Longstanding ANC members were being prevented from taking part because they favoured leaders contrary to the provincial leadership’s choices.
The KwaZulu-Natal ANC leadership is campaigning for Dlamini-Zuma for the presidency.
The co-ordinator of Ramaphosa’s campaign in the province, Mike Mabuyakhulu, said that despite the difficulties that supporters were facing he was confident Ramaphosa would get enough support.
Disputes over the nomination processes were expected, given the divisions plaguing the party, said Sifiso Kunene, a KwaZulu-Natal-based political analyst. “We have heard of the accusations of intimidation and of branches that wait the whole day without presiding ANC deployees arriving. In Ntshanga, ANC supporters wearing SACP colours were prevented from attending ANC meetings.”