This weekend’s final list meeting in Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, will test provincial African National Congress leaders’ claim that tensions in the party are caused by a ”small number” of disgruntled members who lost out during the nomination process.
Khayelitsha has been at the centre of the upheavals. Last week, ANC members from the township burnt their membership cards and joined the United Independent Front. ”Aggrieved ANC members”, claiming to represent thousands, have petitioned the national ANC about the perceived purge of those who did not back provincial chairperson James Ngculu and secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha at the June provincial conference.
Provincial leaders have repeatedly denied the claims.
”There’s been a lot of ill-discipline, but our mandate is to prepare [for the elections],” said Skwatsha of the last of 12 Khayelitsha ward list meetings this weekend. He pointed to the recent provincial general council resolution backing the current leadership. ”We will never allow the ANC to be held to ransom by a small minority who do not make themselves accountable to, nor defend … the internal democracy of the ANC,” read the resolution of 892 delegates, representing 255 branches.
The ward 95 list meeting takes place as the Southern Cape, Karoo, West Coast and Overberg have completed their list processes. The long-delayed Boland list conference takes place next Wednesday.
The Dullah Omar region — representing the Cape peninsula and the strongest ANC region, with 35 000 of the province’s 68 466 members — will be the last region to hold its conference before the provincial list meeting on November 28.
The provisional lists contain many new candidate nominations in five of the six ANC regions. In Dullah Omar, 51 of the 72 ward candidates are new as are five of seven in the Central Karoo region and 30 of 42 in the West Coast.
Other than in the Central Karoo, women do not represent half of all ward candidates, as required by ANC policy. But the 50% target will be achieved through nominations to the proportional representation list.
”There should be continuity but it should not be continuity at all costs,” said Skwatsha.
But the political careers of 10 of the 24 Cape Town New National Party councillors who crossed to the ANC in September last year are over. Just 14 of the 24 defectors have made it back on to ANC lists.