Daily Dispatch
Court challenge looms on vote
CYRIL Ramaphosa’s election as the new ANC president has been marred by the looming court challenge over the controversial omission of 68 ballots from the final votes tallied on the day that the party’s Top Six officials were announced.
This came after the names of eligible voting delegates, did not appear on the voters’ roll as a result of an error committed by the Elexion, the agency running the elections at the ANC’s 54th national congress.
The 68 were allowed to vote but their ballots were “quarantined” while their status was being verified. However even after the conference steering committee – the interim leadership structure during a conference – had verified they were members in good standing, their ballots were not counted as part of the overall votes tallied.
In fairness, their votes should also be counted. Therefore the threat to go to court by supporters of Senzo Mchunu is valid. But it has the potential to plunge the ANC into further crisis. Mchunu lost the race for the secretary-general’s position to controversial Free State premier Ace Magashule by a mere 24 votes.
With the exception of the secretary-general’s position, all other contested positions in the ANC Top Six were won with margins averaging 200 votes. This means that, with those other five positions, whichever way the 68 disputed votes went they would not change the outcome. They would merely tinker with the margin depending on their allocation.
The only person whose fortunes depend on the 68 votes is Mchunu as the outstanding numbers have the potential of placing him ahead of Magashule – that is if the majority of them voted in his favour.
By yesterday afternoon the lawyers representing the 68 were waiting to take further instructions from their clients on the way forward. Whether they go to court or not, what is clear though is that the ANC is far from united. Despite the “mixed bag” of elected officials coming from both the Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma slates, the divisions remain.
Magashule was a key member of the Dlamini-Zuma camp while Mchunu was Ramaphosa’s pick for the secretary-general’s position. But it seems that the ANC would rather sweep the matter under the carpet by managing it politically – talking Mchunu out of going to court.
A video emerged yesterday showing Ramaphosa urging his followers to abandon the court challenge saying it has potential to undermine the outcome of conference.
“We felt that what we must do is to try to protect the integrity of this conference. We must not allow this conference to degenerate into controversy and huge legal suits that will nullify the result that we’ve come up with,” Ramaphosa can be heard saying.
Basically the new ANC leadership is choosing political expediency over the democratic right of members to participate in the conference. Thus denying the 68 their right to vote for a leadership of their choice.
Magashule is no friend of democratic processes and the SG’s position is a crucial one. Hopefully Ramaphosa will not come to rue the day he urged Mchunu camp to drop the legal challenge.