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ANC sources say president told members at NEC meeting to look at candidate list issue sensitively
President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned members of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) to be cautious when addressing issues about candidates on the party’s election list because voters “were angry”.
Sources who attended the ANC’s special NEC meeting last Monday at Saint George’s Hotel in Tshwane said Ramaphosa cut short what would have been an overnight discussion about the controversial list.
More than half of the 110 NEC members were lined up to speak, but only 20 to 30 of them managed to before Ramaphosa intervened and presented a summary.
The outcome of the list process was one of the biggest indicators that Ramaphosa’s authority in the ANC was slippery, and that the camp aligned with party secretary-general Ace Magashule had the upper hand.
Ramaphosa’s trusted lieutenants, such as Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom, found themselves low down on the list, despite their influence in government – which ANC branches don’t appear to recognise.
The Ramaphosa camp anticipated that their opponents would be financially exhausted after the elections next month and therefore unable to launch a fightback ahead of the national general council next year, and again at the party’s 2022 national conference.
It was therefore important for the Ramaphosa camp to ensure that hostile candidates were kept far from potentially lucrative positions.
On the other hand, Magashule’s backers apparently wanted to obfuscate the list issue, adding to the dispute a claim that even those who previously worked with EFF leader Julius Malema should be scrapped, which former ANC Youth League leader Abner Mosaase said was “a cause for concern”.
An NEC member lobbying for a review of the list said Ramaphosa dismissed the explanation that it was a product of the democratic process, saying this did not cut it with voters he spoke to during door-to-door campaigns because “people are angry”.
“That is what the president of the ANC said. He said we must look at it sensitively because people are not happy,” the NEC member said.
City Press heard that Magashule restated before the NEC that he had not tampered with the list to advance the interests of rogue candidates, which he had been accused of doing.
He said the final list was a product of engagements during an extended national working committee meeting attended by provincial secretaries two weeks ago.
But a senior party leader claimed there was evidence that Magashule was guilty of interference, saying: “There is documentation that he changed a name.”
Another NEC member who supports the list said they understood Ramaphosa to be saying that the ANC must demonstrate seriousness by dealing with the list in totality.
The ANC leader said this supported a unanimous decision that the entire list – and not only those whose names had been objected to – must be sent to the integrity commission, which would then make recommendations.
City Press learnt that a crisis committee led by ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte was tasked with helping the party convince the “tainted” candidates to withdraw their names from the list.
But this intervention stalled when affected candidates said there was nothing unconstitutional about their presence on the list.
“The crisis committee has now been dissolved as the matter will be handled by the integrity commission,” a source said.
The commission is expected to meet this week in Johannesburg.
“Two days ago, the integrity commission was waiting for a letter from [Duarte] to give them an instruction that they should start,” said an insider. “It was expected that, once the committee received the instruction, it would start doing the work as soon as possible.”
Attempts to obtain comment from integrity commission head George Mashamba were unsuccessful.
ANC Veterans’ League head Snuki Zikalala said they remained adamant that “those who are implicated in any corrupt activities must self-introspect and decline the nomination in the interest of the country and the ANC, because people are worried about implicated people being members in Parliament”.
“If you talk about cleansing, you have to make sure that people you send to Parliament have credible credentials,” he said.
Zikalala said the matter was discussed at the NEC and it was agreed that the integrity committee must “go through the list to check if everyone met the criteria in the ANC’s The Eye of the Needle policy document”.
He said the committee had to check whether candidates had criminal records, and whether their activities and actions affected the party’s integrity.
“The exercise should not be cosmetic because these are serious elections, and the ANC cannot afford to lose society’s trust by putting people who have bad credentials as members of Parliament,” he said.
Zikalala added that, if the list was not amended, the league would insist that “there must be no guarantee that those implicated will be given any other senior position including as ministers or portfolio committee chairpersons”.
“If [the integrity committee] comes back to us without implementing any of our resolutions, we will take it up with the committee as well at the next NEC – even after the elections,” he said.
SNUFFING OUT OBJECTIONS
Magashule told the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) last week that the objections to candidates on the ANC list were not compliant with the law, which required that the objectors also serve a copy of their objection to the affected party, which would consist of their full details including names and contact details.
“We wish to place on the record that we are not aware of having been served with any objection in the prescribed manner,” Magashule said in a letter on Wednesday.
On Friday, Magashule’s ally and former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo – who is also one of those facing objections – approached the IEC for “full details of the complaint and complainant to make an informed decision on the course of action”.
Mahumapelo said in a letter that it was unfortunate for his name to be “punted already in media platforms as [a person] who fails the test of ethics and integrity by some members of society and observers”.
DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
When asked about retracting the ANC statement accusing newspapers of a “Stratcom” plot, an NEC member said the discussions were not conclusive.
Stratcom was a group within the apartheid government that was specifically tasked to create and carry out disinformation campaigns.
“The president said [the ANC top six] had lunch [during the special NEC meeting]. They discussed that. They all concluded that is a personal matter,” said a source.
The meeting heard that Magashule would pursue legal action against the publisher of the book Gangster State – Unravelling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture.
“That has got nothing to do with the ANC. That is what the president said. Ace is trying to do everything that suits him. He is trying to spin, and you can’t spin facts. Tell the truth,” a source said.
The source added that Magashule and ANC acting spokesperson Dakota Legoete “do not understand that they are putting us into crisis”.
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