Sechaba ka’Nkosi
The African National Congress leadership meets this weekend to finalise the political future of candidates heading its election nomination list.
With the party upbeat about the possibility of netting more than 60% of the vote in the general election, the crucial three-day meeting has drawn much interest because it has to decide who will survive or perish under Thabo Mbeki’s reign as South Africa’s future president.
ANC representative Thabo Masebe confirmed that the special national executive committee meeting could give a clear indication who would serve in Parliament, but not in the Cabinet.
“Cabinet and premiership appointments are the prerogative of the president. But with Parliament, you may find that we want to retain people because of the need for experience accumulated in the past five years,” said Masebe.
Mbeki and deputy ANC president Jacob Zuma are also expected to finalise the placement of Inkatha Freedom Party and New National Party defectors on to the ANC lists.
Zuma heads the ANC deployment committee that will recommend who goes where in the three tiers of government – although Mbeki will have the final say.
The ANC made it clear last year that it reserves a right to “redeploy” its members as it sees fit, which could see promotions and demotions for some of its members.
The ANC head of the presidency, Smuts Ngonyama, said those who were asked to leave the National Assembly for other tiers of government should not view this as a “step down”.
“Some of the senior leaders of the ANC could be redeployed to provincial and even local governments after the elections. There is no indication that any of our leaders would be clipped,” said Ngonyama.
Other people serving on the deployment committee are Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma, Deputy Minister of Finance Gill Marcus, former ANC chief whip Max Sisulu, South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande, his deputy Thenjiwe Mtintso and Sam Shilowa of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
The meeting will also take place amid increasing doubts that a national summit will be sheduled between the ANC and its left-wing allies Cosatu and the SACP.
There were expectations that the summit would determine an election pact between the allies, which would then kick-start the election campaign. Cosatu and the SACP have, however, given a cautious thumbs-up to co- operation between the ANC and the IFP.
“We are strongly of the view that the IFP is an anti-working class organisation. But we support the co-operation only to isolate certain people who are not happy with it because they are still part of the third force machinery,” Nzimande said.