Cyril camp not buying ‘unity’ vote
Deputy president’s supporters back Mathews Phosa’s court bid to nullify Mpumalanga nominations
Lobbyists of two ANC presidential hopefuls in Mpumalanga have raised concerns over delegates that voted for “unity” as they claimed it was against ANC guidelines.
Those supporting the campaigns of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Mathews Phosa for the ANC presidency said they were planning to approach the court to nullify the results of Friday’s provincial general council (PGC).
During the PGC at Mbombela Stadium, 223 branches voted for unity, while 123 voted for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and 117 for Ramaphosa for the president position.
Rules 11 and 12 of the ANC constitution stipulate that “a person must have been a member in good standing for at least 10 years” before they could be nominated to the national leadership. “Unity” is a non-person and is therefore not eligible to stand.
While the electoral commission ruled out unity as a voting option, Mpumalanga ANC chairman David Mabuza said unity was the option of all four regions of the province.
Sello Shai, who coordinates Ramaphosa’s campaign in the province, said: “Unity cannot be sustained chief. Unity was just used to sway branches that wanted Ramaphosa from achieving their will.
“Unity was imposed. So the numbers 117 overall nomination for him is not the true reflection of the branches.
“As we said earlier, Phosa’s side is going to court about this PGC and we will support him.”
Phosa’s campaign co-ordinator Ronnie Malomane confirmed yesterday they would approach a court in Pretoria today and join the Ramaphosa intervention.
“First there’s no person called unity – I regard that as a synonym for the premier league,” said Malomane.
“Mabuza and the PEC misled branches and we want the PEC to be disbanded.”
He said they were approaching the court because the ANC had failed to resolve previous disputes.
Shai claimed PEC leaders had been bulldozing branch meetings, imposing unity.
The last PGCs will be held today in KZN and Limpopo.
Gauteng ANC chairman Paul Mashatile has warned that the party might lose power in 2019 if it fails to stem factionalism within its ranks.
Delivering his closing address at the party’s provincial general council (PGC) in Tshwane yesterday, Mashatile said the party should come out of its national elective conference united.
The ANC is due to elect President Jacob Zuma’s replacement and the rest of its national leadership at the conference which starts next week in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.
“Let us approach the 54th national conference with a determination to eradicate slates when electing the leadership of our organisation. The days of winner-takes-all are over,” Mashatile said.
Gauteng branch delegates overwhelmingly support Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidential bid with 374 nominations, and he is trailed by former African Union Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma with 64 nominations.
Mashatile said the province wanted a leadership that was diverse in terms of age, gender and race
“We will continue to engage delegates from other provinces on our policy proposals and nominations for leadership. We will do everything with utmost discipline to ensure that our conference becomes a great success,” he said.
The indaba also came up with policy proposals for the national conference.
They include a call for the reformation of the electoral model to make it a hybrid of a constituency-based and proportional representation systems at national and provincial levels.
They also want the president, premiers and mayors to be directly elected by voters. At the moment, MPs, MPLs and councillors elect them after the election results have been announced.
The PGC has also proposed that the party should introduce an electronic membership system, and endorsed the Eastern Cape proposal that the party’s rank-and-file should directly elect leaders at all levels.
It also called for the size of the ANC’s top leadership to be increased so that it has two deputy presidents and two deputy secretaries-general.
The days of winnertakes-all are over Paul Mashatile ANC GAUTENG CHAIRMAN