Business Day
*ANC branches in Gauteng irked by ‘preferred list’****Setumo Stone and Karl Gernetzky, Business Day, Johannesburg, 10 October 2012*
AFRICAN National Congress (ANC) branches in Gauteng have cried foul at a decision by provincial leaders to pronounce on who should be supported for the post of party president at its electoral conference in Mangaung in December.
This comes as branch general meetings, which will decide on the party’s future leadership, begin this week. On Sunday, Gauteng ANC leader Paul Mashatile announced that the province’s top brass preferred Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe for the position, a move labelled by branch leaders as a top-down approach to nominations.
The provincial general council recommended Tokyo Sexwale or Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for deputy president, Joel Netshitenzhe or Gwede Mantashe for secretary-general, Febe Potgieter-Gqubule for deputy secretary-general, Thandi Modise or Naledi Pandor for chairman or chairwoman and Mr Mashatile for treasurer-general.
The ANC has been struggling to eliminate the practice of slates — where leaders are selected according to their political alliance instead of their qualities — during elections. Many party leaders, including Mr Mashatile, have spoken out against the practice of slates.
Branch leaders who did not want to be named before the branch general meeting that takes place on Friday expressed dissatisfaction about the premature announcement.
A branch leader from Johannesburg said on Tuesday that members felt that the provincial leadership had "jumped the gun" in announcing its preferences.
Many were not necessarily unhappy about the selection made by the provincial executive committee, but were not pleased with its decision to bypass the branches and pronounce without their input.
A leader from Sedibeng region expressed similar sentiments.The Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association’s (MKMVA’s) Ekurhuleni secretary, Bafana Mahlabe, said Gauteng branches of the MKMVA were behind President Jacob Zuma, despite the pronouncement of the organisation’s provincial executive committee at the council on Sunday to remain neutral on the question of the party’s leadership.
The MKMVA does not have any voting power, but it claims to be highly active in provincial structures of the ANC. Mr Mahlabe said that the MKMVA structures were convinced that after continued engagement, those in the ANC in Gauteng pushing for leadership change would discover they did not have the backing of local branches.
It was branches, not the leadership, which would ultimately determine the future of the party at Mangaung, he said.
This sentiment was echoed by a branch leader in Ekurhuleni, who said on Tuesday that accepting the list proposed by the provincial leaders would be similar to promoting slates, which would "only be supported by lobby groups", not branches.
"We cannot be condemning slates and then at the very same people come with their slates to the membership," said the source.
He said the decision of provincial leaders to pronounce on their preferred candidates was not different from what happened in the period before the Polokwane electoral conference in 2007.
Provincial leaders in Gauteng then preferred a third term for former President Thabo Mbeki, which was later rejected by branch delegates when they came out in support of Mr Zuma.
On Tuesday, the provincial executive committee in the Eastern Cape announced that it would back Mr Zuma for re-election. It wanted Mr Motlanthe to stay on as deputy president.
The Eastern Cape is the ANC’s second-largest province, after Mr Zuma’s home province, KwaZulu-Natal.
With Natasha Marrian*From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2012/10/10/anc-branches-in-gauteng-irked-by-preferred-list*
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