Region wants new premier
Joe Gqabi ANC executive defies party and publicly names Masualle as preferred candidate
AREGION of the ANC has gone against party protocol and pronounced publicly its preferred candidate for the Eastern Cape premiership candidate.
The Joe Gqabi ANC regional executive committee (REC) has come out in open support of MEC for provincial planning and finance Phumulo Masualle to succeed Noxolo Kiviet.
The region includes Aliwal North, Barkly East, Burgersdorp, Steynsburg and Venterstad.
The REC met last Monday and declared it would support Masualle as its preferred premier candidate.
Regional deputy secretary Mfundo Bongela, who is also ANC spokesman for the region, said REC members had voted “unanimously” that Masualle was the right man for the job.
In an interview with the Dispatch yesterday, Bongela said this would help “influence President Jacob Zuma’s decision” when he decided who should lead the Eastern Cape as premier.
However, ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said the region was jumping the gun.
“No region had [the] competency [to talk] on premiership. That’s a national competency. The PEC [provincial executive committee] will meet at an appropriate time and recommend three names. Thereafter national decides. That’s the process.”
Mabuyane said the Masualleled PEC would only meet after the elections to decide on the ANC’s preferred top three candidates.
“We would like to request all ANC structures to respect ANC procedures and policies. We expect every structure to focus on electioneering for the overwhelming victory of the ANC on May 7,” said Mabuyane.
Bongela said the meeting had already discussed the matter.
Masualle is serving his second term in office after being re-elected ANC provincial chairman in Port Elizabeth last June.
Bongela said the REC argued that it would push for Masualle to be premier “to avoid having two centres of power.
“When you have a provincial chairman who is also a premier you are ensuring that party decisions get implemented smoothly and fast by the government because the premier understands what the logic behind that decision was,” said Bongela.
He said this, coupled with Masualle’s track record as a seasoned member of the executive council, “makes him stand out”.
“We are going to appeal to the president to consider our view when he makes the decision on who should be the province’s premier,” he added.
The Daily Dispatch has reported several times that roads and housing MEC Helen Sauls-August tops the party’s candidates list to Bhisho.
She is followed by local government MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane, transport MEC Thandiswa Marawu and then Masualle.
Asked about the premiership candidacy earlier this year, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said it was an ANC policy to leave the debate until after the elections.
This was to avoid centring the party’s campaign in any province on an individual.
After elections, Mantashe said, the president considered the PEC recommendation but was not limited to it as he had the prerogative to appoint anyone irrespective of his or her position on the party’s candidates’ list.
None of the ANC’s other regions have pronounced on the matter. —