WCape ANC meeting ends with no nominations

2012-12-01 07:48

ANC (Picture: Supplied)

Cape Town - The ANC in the Western Cape adjourned its Provincial General Council (PGC) early on Saturday morning without endorsing preferred candidates for the ruling party's top six positions ahead of Mangaung.

Logistical delays, which included the verification of branch delegates by external auditors, saw the province unable to meet the Friday midnight deadline of consolidating the positions of branches on who should lead the ANC.

A visibly exhausted ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said they had not anticipated the verification process would take more than 16 hours. He said: "We would not want to conduct a process that tomorrow people will contest and question...We will rather have a process that is above board."

Mjongile said while it was unfortunate they had missed the deadline to decide on their intended nominees, it was likely provincial branch delegates would make their nominations from the floor at Mangaung.

The ANC constitution makes provision for this, provided the nominee enjoyed the support of 25% of all voting delegates at the December national elective conference.

"That is the only option, unless the national office or NEC decides to give us a special dispensation to reconvene the PGC, but I'm very doubtful given [that] the time frames are tight," Mjongile said.

The Mangaung conference would take place in less than 16 days.

The Western Cape is allowed 178 delegates at Mangaung, which includes those from the province's 170 branches and selected members of the Provincial Executive Committee.

It was however not clear whether the entire contingent would be allowed at the conference, as the verification of delegates was not complete.

Mixed signals came from delegates who sang and danced as the verification took place.

A big contingent appeared to favour Kgalema Motlanthe to replace Jacob Zuma as ANC President.

However, another group wearing attire with the words "100 percent Zumantashe" also sang their praises for Msholozi, an affectionate term to describe Zuma.

- SAPA