ANC acting secretary general Paul Mashatile has finalised the number of all provincial delegates that will be participating in this year's national elective conference.
Mpumalanga has dropped to fifth place in the ANC’s provincial audits, losing its profile as the second biggest power player in the ruling party’s politics.
ANC acting secretary general Paul Mashatile has finalised the number of all provincial delegates that will be participating in this year’s national elective conference in December.
This comes just two days after the Mail & Guardian reported that the Eastern Cape had expressed frustration over the number of delegates approved to participate at the national conference.
In a letter seen by the M&G sent to provincial secretaries and dated 14 September, Mashatile said the number of delegates approved was based on the 3 September cut off date for membership renewal.
The letter states that 3 942 ANC branches had more than 100 members and were therefore entitled to one delegate each.
Mashatile said the ruling party’s national executive committee (NEC) had also decided that a branch would get one delegate for every additional 150 members subject to the limitations of the national conference ceiling for attendance.
The special NEC held last Friday also revised the guidelines for branch general meetings (BGMs) set to start next week. The BGMs will decide on their preferred candidates for the top six positions in the ANC.
The deadline for BGMs to nominate NEC members is 2 October.
Mashatile wrote that the scanning of identity documents (IDs) for branch members to attend BGMs would be limited to six hours, after which the QR codes used to scan the ID barcodes of legitimate members would be disabled. The QR codes would also be disabled at midnight on the day of the BGMs. Mashatile added that the manual scanning of members would only be limited to 10% attendance to disqualify the BGM.
“No one is allowed to collect members’ ID for the purpose of the BGM without their presence in the meeting. Branch secretaries will be able to access and download preliminary verification reports from the membership management system. Where meetings are disqualified the branch executive committee must immediately meet to ensure the BGM reconvenes and mobilise for a successful BGM,” he said.
A total of 4 250 delegates will participate at this year’s national elective conference.
According to the report, the province which will have the highest number of delegates at the national conference is KwaZulu-Natal, which has received approval for 877 delegates. In June, the province recorded 177 653 members, but this decreased to 136 267 after the membership renewal cycle.
The Eastern Cape will have the second biggest delegation with 684 members allowed to participate from its 117 949 members. The province has complained that its membership was sharply cut, laying the blame at Mashatile’s feet. It said at least 60 branches equating to almost 20 000 numbers had been removed from the final audit report.
A meeting between the provincial and national organising committees was then held at the behest of the NEC. Nomvula Mokonyane, who is in charge of the organising committee at Luthuli House, has previously denied these claims, calling them sensational.
The third largest delegation will come from Limpopo with 613 members participating. Limpopo had 128 418 members in the final audit report. Gauteng province will have the fourth biggest delegation of 520 from its 85 574 members.
Mpumalanga is now only the fifth largest ANC province with 390 delegates and 68 268 members. Under deputy president David Mabuza, it was the second largest province at the ANC’s last national conference at Nasrec in 2017.
North West province will have 361 delegates, with Free State allowed to have 301 delegates participating. The Western Cape and Northern Cape will have the lowest delegations, numbering 283 and 239 respectively.
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