‘One member one vote’ plan hailed
THE radical Eastern Cape ANC policy proposal that all party members vote for their preferred ANC leaders is likely to get the green light when taken to plenary at the National Policy Conference (NPC) today.
This was after eight of the nine commissions on Organisational Renewal and Design that discussed the proposal endorsed it.
The proposal will first have to be discussed by delegates at the plenary session today.
If the plenary gives its stamp of approval, the proposal will join the policy recommendations to the December national elective conference, the ANC’s highest decision making body, for further discussion.
The Dispatch reported last month that the proposal – termed “one member, one vote” – first came into the spotlight when provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane raised it at a Solomon Mahlangu Memorial Lecture in Duncan Village.
Instead of the current system, in which about 5 000 branch delegates elect national party leaders, Mabuyane said the party’s close to one million members should be allowed to directly vote for their preferred leaders.
This, according to Mabuyane, will ultimately kill slate politics and patronage in the governing party.
The ANC in Gauteng had also adopted a similar plan in their provincial general council.
Mabuyane confirmed yesterday that the proposal had been embraced by NPC delegates.
“The ‘ one member one vote’ policy proposal has found quite good support. It has been supported in commissions and by individual provinces,” Mabuyane said.
Also, the redistribution of land debate – which the Eastern Cape has direct interest in – was also receiving support, said Mabuyane.
“The ANC must be able to deal with the issue of land decisively but of course using constitutional means because we cannot be disruptive in how we do it,” said Mabuyane.
The province’s proposal on land was that it be expropriated without compensation. “People who are beneficiaries of this redistribution must be able to use the land because currently some of them are not using it at all while some of the land was very productive before it was redistributed to them,” he said.