The African National Congress plans to investigate allegations of candidate list manipulation, the party’s secretary general said on Sunday.
“The national executive committee endorsed the team that will investigate allegations of manipulation of the list process,” said Gwede Mantashe.
The team, to be chaired by Minister of Home Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, would be briefed on Monday about the terms of reference for the investigation.
Mantashe said that the elections had been “a steep learning curve”, and the party had responded to reactions from communities, ranging from protest to acceptance.
“When people said that we [the ANC] started campaigning late, we actually started putting up [election] posters in October [last year],” he said, adding that the campaign had “hotted up” two months prior to the election.
In response to allegations that comments by senior leaders may have alienated minority voters, Mantashe said the number of coloured people voting for the ANC had increased.
“Statistics is a strange science. The overall number of coloured voters [for the ANC] increased, even though the percentage declined.”
This was to do with increased voter turn-out, he said.
Gender parity
Mantashe reiterated the party’s mandate as a party of transformation, saying the NEC was “satisfied” that provinces had “tried hard” to appoint female mayors in at least half of the municipalities it controlled.
Mantashe said that gender parity was “not just a numerical issue but a political one”, and explained that it was “not enough” to have a fair gender split in terms of numbers if women were appointed mainly to small municipalities.
“The smaller the municipality, the smaller the revenue. If we appointed women only to the smaller municipalities that would be setting them up for failure,” he said.
The ANC would visit regions to conduct “thank-you rallies”, to show voters appreciation for their support.
He said that “door-to-door” visits by councillors should not cease, but it should be an on-going process to ensure that councillors were kept in touch with their communities. – Sapa