THE ROAD TO CONFERENCE

23 DAYS TO GO

‘Some will resist, others will be enticed’

THE CULTURE of bribing delegates, first seen in 2007 at the Polokwane national conference in which then deputy president Jacob Zuma unseated former president Thabo Mbeki, was unlikely to change, warned political analyst Thabani Khumalo.

With formal nominations expected to take place in the next week or two at the provincial general councils, delegates elected to the ANC conference are likely to be enticed with bags full of money and lucrative promises to abandon mandates from their branches, he said.

Khumalo said that while some principled delegates would resist the temptation, others would be enticed by the offers.

After the branch general meetings, the ANC allows delegates to lobby each other to abandon their branch mandates, but offering or accepting a bribe is disallowed.

He said beside the use of “brown envelopes”, people were promised business opportunities and political positions.

He said the 2007 conference had brought “the evil culture” into the ANC.

“The conference was heavily contested in such a way that this culture of brown envelopes entrenched itself, and it is now part of the election process of the ANC,” said Khumalo.

He said that in dealing with bribery, the ANC had banned cellphones from the area with ballot boxes, but the practice continued.

“People would use their cellphones to take pictures and show people who had promised them money how they had voted,” he said.

He said he supported the suggestion made by ANC veterans at the national consultative conference that all ANC members must decide who becomes party president.

ANC KZN secretary Super Zuma said the ANC would soon hold its provincial general council, where delegates would be warned about the danger of taking bribes to sway branches’ mandates.

He said it was a serious criminal offence that should be dealt with by the police and through internal disciplinary mechanisms.

Zuma said this remained an unproven allegation, as no one had been caught during previous conferences.

Political analyst Imraan Buccus said the issue of bribes being offered was a concern at ANC conferences.

“Despite what the policy architecture might say, the reality is that the liquidation of the process does occur.

“The bribe mostly comes in a form of money, but I think there would be promises of positions,” said Buccus.