Pakati set to be ANC mayoral candidate

BUFFALO City deputy mayor Xola Pakati will likely be the ANC’s mayoral candidate for the 2016 local government elections.

This emerged after delegates at the party’s regional elective conference resolved there would no longer be “two centres of power” in the region.

The two centres of power phrase refers to when a regional, provincial or national leader of the party does not become the regional, provincial or national head of government.

ANC delegates at the Mangaung conference in December 2012 resolved that there should only be one centre of power from national level down.

The ANC regional office would neither confirm nor deny that such a resolution was taken at the weekend conference.

Regional secretary Pumlani Mkolo, who has just been re-elected to serve a second term, said the 25-member regional executive committee (REC) would meet first and refine conference resolutions before they could discuss them in detail with the public.

“At this stage, allow us to deal with our internal discussions as the newly elected structure,” Mko- lo added.

But some of the delegates openly discussed the resolution on social networks.

Others confirmed to the Daily Dispatch that the regional conference had adopted this as a resolution.

BCM Ward 5 secretary Sam Dyantyi, a delegate at the conference, confirmed it was among the resolutions adopted at the weekend conference.

This resolution means that Pakati, by virtue of being regional chairman, would be in line to be the ANC’s BCM mayoral candidate for next year’s elections.

“This is in line with

the

2012 Mangaung conference resolution which stated clearly that there should be one centre of power from branch level up to national,” said Dyantyi.

“The same resolution was revived at the national general council in Gallagher Estates in October, and so in line with that we are saying our regional chairman has to be the mayoral candidate of this metro.

“This resolution was effected when ANC provincial chairman Phumulo Masualle was appointed to become the premier.

“We are saying we have elected a regional chairman at this conference and there is no reason that he should not be the face of our local elections campaign.”

Dyantyi said the same guidelines would have to be used when dealing with ward councillors.

“At branch level we have branch chairmen who are the face of the ANC at local level.

“In order to stay true to this resolution we are saying branch chairmen or women should be the automatic choices as ward councillors in order to eliminate these ongoing fights between branch executive councils and ward councillors.

“We are firm in ensuring that this resolution is implemented as BCM,” he added.

The resolution places a question mark over the future of current mayor Alfred Mtsi.

Mtsi was elected to take over from mayor Zukiswa Ncitha barely five months ago.

He had just been elected as a senior ANC member of the provincial legislature after the May 2014 general elections, a position he was likely to hold until the next election in 2019.

Ward 20 conference delegate Thabang Maseko and his Facebook friends discussed the matter openly in support of the “one centre of power” resolution.

Among them was ward 22 secretary Nkululeko Vellem and new BCM REC member Mfundo Botha. They both gave a thumbs up to the resolution. —