ANC vote process open to abuse

As the ANC’s Game of Thrones gets down to serious political blood-letting at the end of this week, it is arithmetic, rather than ideology, which will determine the outcome. And, with only a few days to go, the ANC’s conference numbers are all over the place. As we report today, there are more than 1 000 voting delegates whose allegiances or voting preferences are not known. So, more than 20% of the 5 200 delegates who will gather at Nasrec outside Johannesburg on Saturday, are either undecided or keeping their cards close to their chests.

It goes without saying that this significant voting bloc could be the final game-changer for either of the front-running hopefuls in the ANC presidential race – Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or Cyril Ramaphosa.

Many observers, and even supposedly experienced political pundits, have been making the mistake of announcing that deputy president Ramaphosa has the race in the bag, simply because he has won the highest number of nominations from branches. This ignores the reality that some branches, along with some regions and some provinces, have more conference voting delegates because they are bigger.

And Dlamini-Zuma undoubtedly has strong support in the most populous voting provinces, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.

Many of the “missing” or “unallocated” delegate votes come from Mpumalanga where a “third choice” – that of the nebulous concept of “unity” – scored a significant chunk of nominations in the branch and regional conference process.

However, the whole calculation of ANC succession is opaque – maybe deliberately so – and that lack of clarity shows that bureaucracy, and not democracy, dominates the ruling party. Whatever people on the ground want, their only guarantee of seeing that happen is in the honesty of their delegates … many of whom come from other areas.

The whole process is open to abuse and gerrymandering – and that is worrying.