Tensions are sharpening in the ranks of the African National Congress ahead of the upcoming provincial conferences to determine who will be the organisation’s election candidates next year.
By the end of this month all ANC provinces must have held conferences to determine who their nominees for public office will be and where they will be placed on the party’s list of candidates for the 2004 elections.
Robust lobbying is expected on Saturday in the Western Cape — the first province to hold a list conference. The current tensions are acknowledged. “It would be stretching the truth to say everything was 100%,” said Western Cape ANC secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha.
“The tensions that come with such a process, engaging in lobbying, should be played down,” said Western Cape ANC leader Ebrahim Rasool. “At the end of the day everyone understands the ANC can win in 2004 in the Western Cape.”
Talks on a code of conduct and lobbying procedure to calm internal rivalries were ruined by the leaking of a document, attributed to the intelligence community, which details ANC factions in the Western Cape as part of a pre-election assessment of the security situation in the province. The document was leaked to a Cape Town newspaper two weeks ago. A senior ANC insider says the document has “destroyed the equilibrium” reached by the talks.
The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has denied it is responsible for the document. Spokesperson Lorna Daniels confirmed that an investigation into the origin of the document is under way, but declined to give details.
Jockeying for jobs appears to be at the heart of current tensions in the Western Cape, with officials eyeing seats on the provincial executive council or in the provincial legislature. The traditional split between the Africanist and coloured groupings in the province appears to have largely been ironed out. Since the late 1990s much work has gone into restyling the ANC as “A Home for All”, as the 1999 election motto had it. It is anticipated that standing ANC provincial ministers and members of the provincial legislature will top the provincial list, but there will also be some new blood.
The organisation believes it can secure a convincing victory at the polls, predicting it will win between 44% and 48% of the vote. With the support of its governance partner, the New National Party, it will maintain control of the province.
As the ANC list process unfolds in the rest of the country, some of the organisation’s provincial premiers may find themselves in an awkward position.
According to some ANC insiders, Mpumalanga Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu only managed to secure the nomination of about seven branches. The other premier who could not be safe, say Free State insiders, is Winkie Direko. A party member requires nominations from at least five branches to feature on the list of ANC public candidates for provincial legislatures and Parliament.
Last year, both Mahlangu and Direko made unsuccessful bids to get elected as chairs of their respective ANC provincial structures. Mahlangu was not even elected to the province’s executive committee.
Said an insider in Mpumalanga: “While he [Mahlangu] may have qualified, surely the leadership must consider the little support he has received.” Mpumalanga is set to have its list conference on October 11, according to ANC provincial secretary Lucas Mello.
KwaZulu-Natal is expected to release the first draft of its nominee list this week, but it has yet to allocate a date for its provincial conference. Some ANC officials in the province grumbled that branches in northern KwaZulu-Natal were still being re-established early this week. ANC provincial spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu insists that all the necessary processes are on track.
There are reports that Durban metro mayor Obed Mlaba and speaker Nomusa Dube, initially nominated by more than 20 branches for a seat either in the legislature or Parliament, are despondent. The ANC’s national leadership has indicated that local government representatives will not be eligible for positions in the provincial or national government. It would be impractical to hold by-elections to fill so many vacated positions.
The ANC’s other provincial structures have all scheduled list conferences over the next two to three weeks. Once the provinces have finished meeting, the ANC will hold a conference at the end of October to begin sorting out its national list.