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A court challenge looms against the ANC in North West following the contested result that favoured presidential nominee Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed President Jacob Zuma in two weeks time at the ANC national conference in Nasrec in Johannesburg.
This comes after the province’s general council on Friday in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, declared Dlamini-Zuma the overall winner with 291 ANC branch nominations for the position of president.
The results announcement was preceded by scuffles, shouting, singing, booing and heated disputes over alleged bogus delegates that participated in the meeting in order to disadvantage Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as a presidential contender.
While the meeting was underway, at a nearby hotel restaurant key lobbyists in Ramaphosa’s campaign were compiling evidence of irregularities in the nominations process with a view to file an urgent court interdict against the results.
It had been expected, City Press was told, that Ramaphosa would get at least 169 branch nominations. The ANC elections agency reported that he had only managed 45 nominations, however.
The media was allowed to sit in the plenary during the debate on the credentials, which was an unprecedented event for similar ANC meetings.
In his closing address North West Premier and ANC chairperson Supra Mahumapelo described the mood as one of “robust engagement” and urged media to report that “no one was suppressed”.
Ramaphosa’s backers, mostly gathered outside the plenary hall as many of them had not been accredited delegates, accused Mahumapelo of manipulating the processes to favour his preferred candidate Dlamini-Zuma.
Many could be heard saying that they will never subject themselves to “trauma” because of Mahumapelo.
Mahumapelo earlier warned those “fond of going to the courts” that in the ANC “you raise a matter in the branch”. He said the ANC provided multiple platforms for appeal – regionally; provincially; the national executive committee; and the national conference.
Nowhere in this process are courts mentioned, he said.
“But as the ANC we must also understand that we are in a democracy. We prefer that members of the ANC don’t go to the courts, but if they do choose to go to the courts they are expressing their right that is in the Constitution, so that is okay.”
“It is not something that is preferred, but if comrades go to court it is not desirable, because we must discuss among ourselves. But the courts will in all instances always say: go back to the organisation and do one, two and three.”
“Which means that even the courts accept that the ultimate structure that must deal with whatever matter that we face is the ANC. If the court says go and rerun the conference, only a conference of the ANC, convened by the ANC, can do that correction. The court cannot convene a conference.”
North West provincial secretary Dakota Legoete said there had been incidents were people lodged disputes but failed to provide evidence, while the other side produced pictures and even videos to show that the branch meeting did take place.
“Some of these disputes came before us, but because people could not provide evidence they lost. The same allegations have already been placed before the national appeals committee.”
He said it showed “nefarious intentions that people now wanted to go to court”.
“We will not stop them because they have a right [to go to court], but they must know we have already won three cases so far.”
On allegations that Mahumapelo was creating a “family dynasty” in the province after his relative, Boitumelo Mahlangu, was elected as a provincial treasurer, Legoete said: “We get elected in the ANC and not appointed, and people join the ANC as individuals.”
“So, being relatives does not take away individual contributions and credentials,” he added.
Legoete said that fellow provincial executive committee member Martin Sebakwane was his cousin.
Among the charges against Mahumapelo was that he had presided over dispute hearings held last week at the Rustenburg Civic Centre, together with Mahlangu, provincial leader Thabo Mokwena, former leader Victor Tsie and ANC provincial spokesperson Gerald Modise.
The ANC had deployed energy minister David Mahlobo, defense minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Ngcakula and national executive committee members Derek Hanekom and Pule Mabe to deal with the disputes.
Hanekom said he had been sent to assist and his deployment was in Northern Cape. He referred questions to Mapisa-Ngcakula.
A member of one of the Rustenburg branches that lodged a dispute said that when they finally arrived last Saturday, Mahlobo’s team refused to review the disputes that were handled by Mahumapelo.
Mahumapelo said people were confused because provincial executives deal with disputes and the national appeals committee deals with appeals. “Because of the time constraints, sometimes the province and national deal with both simultaneously in the same meeting. If a branch or member chooses not to raise the matter with the province, they do so with national deployees so there is no problem.”
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