ANC allocates 4,500 Mangaung votes
NUMBER-crunchers in the African National Congress (ANC) were hard at work last night after the final allocation of voting delegates for the party’s crucial elective conference was released yesterday.
According to circulated figures, KwaZulu-Natal leads with 974 delegates, followed by the Eastern Cape and Limpopo with 676 and 574 respectively.
Those supporting Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to replace President Jacob Zuma said that in comparison with initial unofficial fig- ures, KwaZulu-Natal lost eight delegates in the final count, while Eastern Cape gained 120.
The initial count was seen to favour Mr Zuma’s re-election.
While KwaZulu-Natal is expected to back Mr Zuma, the biggest region in the Eastern Cape, OR Tambo, supports Mr Motlanthe. However, the Eastern Cape’s provincial leaders support the president.
Mr Zuma’s other core provinces, Mpumalanga, Free State and Northern Cape, have 467, 324 and 176 delegates, respectively. Mr Motlanthe’s backers in Gauteng get 500 delegates. The divided provinces, North West and Western Cape — which will hold provincial meetings to discuss nominations today — get 234 and 178 respectively. The youth league, veterans’ league and women’s league will each send 45 delegates, and there will be 82 national executive committee (NEC) members and 20 provincial executive members per province, bringing the total number of votes to 4,500.
Meanwhile, ANC Western Cape provincial chairman Marius Fransman and secretary Songezo Mjongile are poised for a showdown today in discussing leadership nominations.
The two officials are widely believed to back different sides in the party’s succession race.
This comes as the ANC lifted the ban on succession talk at the weekend, opening it up for structures to discuss nominations for Mangaung. Indications are that senior leaders in the Western Cape — as well as the North West — are divided between Mr Zuma or Mr Motlanthe.
Provincial leaders will be seeking to influence branches before they start discussing their preference.
However, the last national conference, in Polokwane in 2007, showed that branch delegates did not always follow the wishes of provincial leaders.
Mr Mjongile — a former leader of the youth league — is rumoured to be backing Mr Motlanthe, while Mr Fransman had been associated with Mr Zuma’s campaign. Mr Fransman, according to reports this week, has declared his support for the president. But Mr Mjongile said no decision had been taken by provincial leaders.
Limpopo was the first province to declare its support for Mr Motlanthe, which has created a tense relationship between the province and Mr Zuma’s supporters in the ANC and in government. Premier Cassel Mathale’s deputy, Dickson Masemola, is understood to have ditched the antiZuma campaign in Limpopo.