/ 17 December 2017

​How many votes will be needed for a win: Credentials finalised

“You will understand that that takes a bit of work because you also have to explain to the branches why they have been disqualified
The North West is holding its provincial conference on Saturday, but ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the party did not think it would affect the national list process. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)

After delaying the 54th ANC conference for a full day, the credentials process — which determines the final list of voting delegates — has been completed and a list adopted. Over 400 delegates have been disqualified, which includes the full KwaZulu-Natal provincial elective committee (PEC) of 27 delegates.

To take the ANC presidential seat — from the 4 776 voting delegates — a candidate would need 2 389 votes.

The numbers have, as expected, dropped with some provinces losing over 50 delegates who were sent to the conference in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.

Amongst the biggest losers was KwaZulu-Natal, whose delegate numbers were standing at 870, but dropped to 804 delegates who will be allowed to vote.

The province had officially backed presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma earlier this month seeing her take 433 nominations from branches across the province in contrast to Cyril Ramaphosa’s 193.

At a briefing deputy general secretary, Jessie Duarte, said that she, the head of the organising division and Fikile Mbalula, together with the nine provincial secretaries, worked on the credentials. 

She said it was not unusual for credentials to be delayed. “We had to delay the credentials by a day given the outcome of the court on KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and the Bojanala region in the North West.”

“This is to ensure credibility of the process. We have been very careful not to move away from this process,” she said.

A list circulated shows that North West, which is another province backing Dlamini-Zuma, lost over 50 voters. The province’s number moved from 538 to 446 delegates who would be allowed to vote.

Duarte said that 35 branches of the North West were disqualified as voting delegates.

“You will understand that that takes a bit of work because you also have to explain to the branches why they have been disqualified,” she said.

The province was also affected by a court ruling, which nullified the Bojanala ANC regional conference.

The ANC’s secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, announced yesterday that the provinces and branches affected by the court rulings in the Free State, North West and KwaZulu-Natal would not be allowed to vote but could remain as non-voting delegates.

In response to reports that delegate figures were incorrect, Duarte said: “There were no inflation of numbers whatsoever”.

“It’s not unusual to delay credentials, we do it for the credibility of the process. As you well know, this is the one point that people use to have court interdicts and court cases and injunctions and we’ve been extremely careful not to open any possibility that will take us in that direction.”

Number of delegates that will be voting

The first number represents the delegates who arrived and the second number represents those who have been confirmed as voting delegates this morning.

Below is the number of delegates that will be voting at the 54th ANC elective conference:

[Athandiwe Saba/M&G]