Party has to fix its systems, says Zulu
SMALL Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has bemoaned the administrative systems the party uses to determine the eligibility of members to vote at an elective conference.
In an interview with Independent Media, Zulu, who is also an ANC national executive committee member, said yesterday the party had to ensure the credentials of delegates were above board to avoid the outcome of the conference being challenged in court.
Zulu admitted divisions in the ANC were caused by contestations. She said there needed to be political education in the party to deal with some of the issues. “Once somebody emerges, everyone should rally behind the new leader. Political education should ground us that we should rally behind the leader,” said Zulu.
The credentials were at the heart of the drawn-out battle between supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma on the first day of the gathering.
Zulu, speaking on the sidelines of the conference, was one of a few senior ANC leaders who confirmed that credentials of delegates had been one of the major sticking points that delayed the conference. “We need to get our systems right and respect our own constitution and the systems we put in place,” said Zulu. “If you are having a branch meeting and the chair and the branch secretary are not abiding by the system, it will affect the system,” said Zulu.
In the run-up to the conference, disgruntled members of the party in KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and North West scored court victories over the party, managing to bar 54 members of provincial executive committees from voting.
President Jacob Zuma, in his farewell speech as the party’s president, condemned members of the party who use courts to settle the party’s disputes, calling for the implementation of a decision to expel them.
Zulu said there had been many issues which had shown that the ANC needed to fix its systems from the branch level to avoid the delays at conference over credentials.
She said the party should accept the decisions of the courts after the special NEC meeting on Saturday decided that provincial executive committee members in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, who are not branch delegates, cannot vote. “We need to respect court decisions because once the court decisions come, they disorganise certain systems,” she said. “There are systems in the ANC which have to work without court interference.”