Careerism appears to have defeated consensus as the ANC Youth League conference sought to ensure an national executive committee (NEC) reached by caucused nomination rather than by ballot.
With the election of the top five leadership sorted out, organisers wanted to achieve consensus in the election of the 30 additional NEC members.
A plan was mooted for each of the nine provinces to nominate three members with the additional three members made up of the two men, Saki Mofokeng and Songezo Mjongile, who ran for the league’s presidency earlier this year, as well as one other national leader.
But the conference was running nine hours behind schedule on Saturday night as nominations to the national executive were held up by a failure to reach consensus on the names to be put forward.
A national executive seat is hot property among young political activists as it opens the door to deployment to both civil service and political positions following the election next year. A seat provides both profile and position.
The plan, hatched by new and former leaders of the organisation, was to choose the additional members by agreement rather than by ballot, so avoiding the long process of printing ballot papers, voting and counting.
Formal elections would have been sidestepped in favour of a process where nominations from the floor would close once 30 names had been put forward. On Saturday night, however, delegates failed to agree on a consolidated list of 30 members, and voting was still on the cards.
‘It’s about resources. People think that if you get on the NEC, you have more access to resources. You have to think about deployment. People think, ‘I might be deployed there,’†one delegate told the Mail & Guardian after nominations had closed.
‘This is an organisation of human beings. Like [ANC secretary general] Gwede [Mantashe] said, the league is not like a tap that you can open and close when you want to. It is about human beings and there will always be contestation,†the delegate said.
The leadership of the league wanted the sentiment of unity mirrored in the leadership chosen to augment the top five members, a national executive member told the M&G.
Said another NEC member: ‘If they opt for the election process, this will further divide the organisation again.â€
Negotiations around the list of NEC members took place throughout Saturday and turned the conference programme on its head. Delegates were supposed to start with policy discussions in commissions at 10am, but by 7pm they were still locked in the plenary hall discussing nominations. It is likely that, despite the best intentions, the conference will run late again.
With the top-five election done and dusted, supporters of ANC president Julius Malema felt they could afford to be magnanimous and extend an olive branch to the camp of Mofokeng by allowing him and some of his supporters to be represented on the NEC.
‘The view is to see to what extent we acknowledge the fact that there were two camps at Mangaung,†an NEC member said.Â
On Friday night, the league’s almost 3 000 delegates were addressed by Mantashe, who did not mince his words in expressing his disappointment at how the Mangaung conference ended in chaos. He formally endorsed the top five youth league leaders on behalf of the ANC, which opened the way for the additional 30 members to be chosen.
The conference also considered increasing the number of NEC members to 33 in order to accommodate more members, but it was decided to keep it to 30.
The process that was scuppered would have seen provinces caucus to decide on nominations. They would then have taken turns in the plenary to nominate their candidates from the floor. Once the 30th member had been nominated, a delegate would have declared the nominations closed.
If this was accepted by all members, the 30 nominated members would have been the new NEC, avoiding elections by ballot.
The league needs to ensure that half of the new NEC members are women, to comply with the 50% gender-representation rule in the ANCYL constitution. As the current conference has more female than male delegates, the league’s leaders are convinced the rule will not pose a problem.
At a press conference on Saturday, youth league spokesperson Zizi Kodwa confirmed that no be disciplinary measures would be instituted against members who misbehaved at the Mangaung conference.