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Branches allege local elections were rigged by the governing party and are taking on the ANC’s top leadership
Fresh after being evicted from the country’s richest metros, the ANC’s top brass face a revolt from branches in its most powerful province.
The revolt is so severe that five KwaZulu-Natal branches – acting on behalf of 40% of the province’s structures – are dragging the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to court to force it to rerun the 2015 provincial leadership conference that saw former premier Senzo Mchunu ousted from power.
In a move that will destabilise the party ahead of its high-stakes elective conference next year, the branches have accused the ANC’s national leadership of endorsing an election that its provincial leadership allegedly rigged.
The ANC and its KwaZulu-Natal leadership have until tomorrow to indicate whether they intend to defend the case.
ANC provincial spokesperson Mdumseni Ntuli said the party would defend the court action.
“But we have serious issues with the timing of the filing of the court papers. They were filed a few days before the elections. What we can deduce from that is that they were meant to tarnish the image of the provincial executive committee (PEC) and brand it as illegitimate. We all know that the conference and processes leading to it were all above board. As such, we have nothing to fear,” he said.
In papers filed at the High Court in Pietermaritzburg – against 39 respondents, including the national leadership, Premier Willies Mchunu, ANC provincial chairperson Sihle Zikalala, and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, which oversaw the voting – they also accuse secretary-general Gwede Mantashe of having a “disgraceful and deplorable” attitude that frustrated their efforts to resolve the matter internally.
Risking expulsion from the party, the branches have asked the court to disband the PEC and set aside the result and decisions of the chaotic November provincial elective conference.
The court action is in open defiance of Luthuli House, which forbids members from taking the party to court and expels them for doing so. But in court papers, the branches argue that they have exhausted all internal party processes, without any joy.
It is also a direct challenge to the ANC’s top-six officials, who endorsed the outcome of the controversial conference.
If the application is successful, it will throw the ANC in the province into disarray as it will render the decisions of the current PEC, and outcomes of meetings they presided over, null and void.
It will force the annulment of the subsequent eThekwini conference that saw incoming Mayor Zandile Gumede take over as chairperson and cancel out big decisions taken by the current PEC, including the removal of the former premier and his MECs.
More importantly, it will have a huge impact on the ANC’s succession, as the Zikalala camp – together with the Premier League (influential supporters of President Jacob Zuma) – is expected to play a key role in supporting whoever Zuma prefers as his successor.
A senior ANC member in KwaZulu-Natal, who spoke on condition of anonymity, alleged the chaotic conference was engineered by the Premier League to consolidate its position ahead of the ANC’s elective conference next year.
“This court action is a battle between two camps in the ANC. The first camp believes in the ANC’s core traditional values of being selfless and being about serving communities. The second grouping is that of powermongers who are bent on enriching themselves, through corrupt patronage networks, to the exclusion of everybody else who is not in their inner circle,” he said.
In court papers, branch leaders and applicants Lawrence Dube, Sibahle Zikalala, Sifiso Mzangwa, Mzweni Ngcobo and Lindiwe Buthelezi allege the party’s NEC gave the “fraudulently predetermined, unconstitutional, invalid, unlawful and irregular” election the thumbs-up. The rebel branches have also asked the court to declare Luthuli House’s decision to “recognise, approve and endorse the conference’s results, resolutions and decisions unlawful and invalid”.
The branches also accuse Mantashe of refusing to speak to a group of lawyers they sent to him to demand answers regarding complaints that aggrieved branches had lodged about the conference.
The court papers contain confirmatory affidavits from 20 other branch leaders around the province and numerous letters of complaint from aggrieved delegates who attended the conference.
“Somewhat disgracefully, the secretary-general’s written response was to advise those attorneys that the ANC does not deal with and reply to attorneys in matters involving its members,” the court papers say.
At the conference, held in Pietermaritzburg, Senzo Mchunu was ousted as chairperson and replaced by Zikalala. The outcome facilitated Senzo Mchunu’s removal as KwaZulu-Natal premier, and a purge of his supporters from the provincial cabinet in May.
“Despite the appeals lodged with Luthuli House, the illegitimate PEC continued to take drastic decisions and was bent on dividing and destroying the movement,” the court papers say. “We also noted a ploy to replace MECs who supported the previous PEC prior to the conference, the plan being to remove ... [Premier Senzo] Mchunu, and [MECs] Mike Mabuyakhulu, Cyril Xaba, Ntombikayise Sibhidla-Saphetha, Belinda Scott and Sibongiseni Dhlomo.”
KwaZulu-Natal is the only province in which the ANC’s support has held steady in the face of dramatic erosion elsewhere in the country. The eThekwini council is one of three of the country’s eight metros in which the ANC won an outright majority in the local government elections two weeks ago.
Following the contentious November conference, 266 branches out of just more than 550 that attended lodged complaints with Luthuli House against the new PEC. The province has 836 branches. Letters of complaint submitted with the court application claim that credentials were not adopted, illegitimate delegates were sneaked in, and legitimate ones were disqualified.
In court papers, the branches also allege that:
- The tweeting of election results by the @myANC Twitter handle while voting was still under way proves the election was rigged and “fraudulently predetermined”;
- The provincial congress, held six months ahead of time, was irregular and not authorised by a third of the party’s branches in the province, as required by the ANC’s constitution;
- Many delegates had not been properly elected in branch general meetings, and membership details and figures were manipulated and “cooked”;
- The voters’ roll was manipulated to favour certain branches, and disadvantage others;
- Branches were not given sufficient time to query and correct preconference branch audit findings; and
- The party’s national and provincial leadership failed to timeously respond to complaints and appeals branches raised about problems before the conference.
In court papers, the branch members say the PEC agreed to an early provincial conference so as not to disrupt preparations for the local government elections. They also allege that while the NEC did not sanction the conference in writing, it tacitly approved it by sending ANC national chairperson Baleka Mbete, deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte and treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize to attend.
The applicants argue that it was strange that the NEC would send representatives to the congress when, 10 days before that, Mantashe had, in writing, instructed the province to postpone the conference. They argue that if the ANC changed its mind, it should have communicated that in writing.
The applicants allege the election results were rigged and “fraudulently predetermined”.
“While the voting process was still proceeding, a tweet from the @myANC account was disseminated purporting to set out the results of voting at the congress as follows: 1 459 delegates voted, Senzo Mchunu received 675 votes, Sihle Zikalala received 789 votes. It also stated ‘Sihle is the chairperson’. That tweet was sent at 10.23pm on November 7.”
The court papers say: “It is unfortunate, but probably no coincidence, how accurately this premature tweet on the official ANC Twitter account predicted the voting for the provincial chairperson. When the result was ultimately announced on November 8, the electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy confirmed indeed that 1 459 delegates had voted, four ballots had been spoilt, Senzo Mchunu had received 675 votes, and Sihle Zikalala had received the remainder.
“Quite how such an accurate prediction could have been made before voting was even finished is difficult to understand, unless those results were fraudulently predetermined.”
