Direct voting proposal could be accepted

THE radical Eastern Cape ANC policy proposal which suggests that all party members must be able to vote for their preferred ANC leaders is likely to get the green light when taken to plenary at the national policy conference today.

This was after eight out of nine commissions on organisational renewal and design which discussed the proposal endorsed it.

This is the policy recommendation which was adopted when the ANC in the province held its policy conference a week ago.

The proposal will first have to be discussed by delegates at plenary session at Nasrec, Johannesburg today.

If the plenary gives it a stamp of approval, it will then form part of policy recommendations to the December national elective conference, the ANC’s highest decision-making body, for further discussion.

It was reported last month that the proposal, also termed “one member, one vote” first came into the spotlight when ANC Eastern Cape provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane raised it sharply during a Solomon Mahlangu Memorial Lecture in Duncan Village, East London.

Instead of the current system under which about 5 000 delegates elect national party leaders, Mabuyane had said, the party’s close to one million members should be allowed to vote directly for their preferred leaders.

This, Mabuyane said, would ultimately kill slate politics and patronage in the party.

He confirmed yesterday that the proposal had been embraced by delegates to the policy conference.