/ 14 December 2007

‘No ANC poll complaints’

The ANC’s in-house electoral commission says it is not investigating a single complaint brought to its attention.

Bertha Gxowa, chairperson of the electoral commission, said the commission did not receive any complaints ‘within its competency”. The commission’s job is to ensure the nomination and voting process at the Polokwane conference runs smoothly.

She said the commission did not receive any complaints that would affect the credibility of the election, despite numerous claims of bribery, intimidation and incorrect procedures followed at branch level. Gxowa said these complaints were handled by the ANC itself, rather than by the commission, and were referred to the commission as ‘minor complaints”.

The commission received complaints about the nomination process, but these were referred to the party because they related to ‘organisational matters”, said Gxowa.

Some branches were accused of not having quorums at their general meetings. Other members complained that they did not know about branch meetings and, therefore, were not included in the nomination processes.

Although the commission has not received any complaints about delegates being bribed, Gxowa said she is aware of such rumours. ‘No one has come to say that Jack bribed John, so we can’t do anything about that.”

Branches that failed to go through proper pre-conference processes will prevent their provinces from sending the allocated number of delegates to Polokwane.

The rules about who would be allowed to attend the conference were interpreted differently by ANC provincial office bearers, causing confusion.

Branches that did not hold general meetings to elect delegates to Polokwane can attend the conference but will not be allowed to vote.

This decision, taken by the ANC’s national executive committee this week, was endorsed by Gxowa.

‘There is no such thing as an automatic delegate just because you’re a chair of a branch. You must be a delegate who was elected by your branch to go to conference,” Gxowa said.

However, Gauteng ANC provincial executive committee member Nat Kekana said the only condition imposed on delegates was that their branches be in good standing. Whether they had quorums at general meetings did not apply.

The ‘majority of branches” that voted in the Gauteng nomination conference did not have proper branch meetings to mandate delegates, said Eastern Cape ANC provincial secretary Siphato Handi.

Thabo Mbeki lobbyists also claimed that provincial conferences did not follow proper procedures and had allowed unauthorised delegates to vote. Members of the Women’s League, Youth League and provincial executive committees, who are not delegates to Polokwane, were allowed to vote. Mbeki’s supporters claimed this enabled ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma to lead the succession race after the nominations.

They raised these issues at the last meeting of the national executive committee to ensure that if Mbeki wins at Polokwane, allegations of vote rigging will not be raised.

Branch meetings were convened in the Eastern Cape this week to ensure that delegates who attend the conference are properly mandated.

In Chris Hani, OR Tambo, Cacadu and Umkhahlamba meetings were held to add 20 delegates to the provincial bloc that will attend the conference.

Gauteng province will send its full delegation of 354 to Polokwane, regardless of whether there were quorums at branch general meetings.

Handi said ‘the failure of branch A to quorate does not result in branch B being able to take more delegates”. The branches that did not have quorums had to forfeit their delegates to the conference, he said.

Every branch in good standing is allowed to send at least one delegate to the conference, with more delegates added according to the provinces allocations.

The provinces have one representative each on the electoral commission at Polokwane to ensure the process has everyone’s buy-in.

In the Free State 30 branches in the regions of Motheo, Lejweleputswa and Fezile Dabi held meetings this week to elect delegates to represent them at Polokwane. This followed a high court ruling that the regional conferences, where the elections for delegates were originally held, were ‘unlawful”.