Lumka Yengeni, wife of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni, has made it on to the ruling party’s ”national-to-national” list for Parliament — in a position which would ensure her election to Parliament.
Other sitting African National Congress Members of Parliament are less fortunate — according to a list issued by ANC spokesperson Steyn Speed on Monday. Appeals against the list can be made by December 5.
Among those who are considered too low on the list is Peter Hendrickse, son of former coloured Labour Party leader Allan Hendrickse, who recently paid a key role in engineering a by-election win in a predominantly coloured Uitenhage, Eastern Cape, ward which had previously been a ”safe” Democratic Alliance seat.
Hendrickse is number 34 on the provincial-to-national list in the Eastern Cape. Last time — in the 1999 national election — the ANC got 21 seats on the provincial list.
Hendrickse has represented the ANC in parliament since 1994 and served as the Labour Party MP for Addo, Eastern Cape, in the apartheid parliament.
Other casualties are Judy Chalmers who is number 24 on the list, just past the point of being ensured a safe seat in Parliament. Chalmers, who has been in Parliament since 1994, is the sister of the late Molly Blackburn — a human rights activist and Progressive Federal Party provincial councillor who died in 1985.
Former Democratic Party health spokesperson Bukelwa Mbulawa-Hans who defected to the ANC before the 1999 election also is too low to make it back. She is at number 32 on the Eastern Cape provincial to national list. She also appears on the national-to-national list at number 215.
There are only 200 seats available on the national-to-national component of the 400 seats in the National Assembly. The ANC can expect to get about 120 to 130 of them.
Lumka Yengeni is number 65 on the consolidated national-to-national list
This will mean that Lumka Yengeni will probably come to parliament just over a year after her husband left parliament under a cloud. Tony Yengeni quit his seat after ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe called for him to do the honourable thing and resign.
Yengeni had pleaded guilty to fraud, admitting that he had received a 47% discount on a vehicle from a company involved in the controversial arms deal. He is appealing against a four-year jail sentence.
Annelize van Wyk, at 129, is skating at the edge of the safe seat territory on the national-to-national list. Van Wyk left General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement to join the ANC earlier this year. Her colleague, Dr Gerhard Koornhof, is in a safe spot at 87. – I-Net Bridge