African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC) member Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Treasurer General, Zweli Mkhize remain the leading horses in the party’s presidential race in KwaZulu-Natal, as branches continue to nominate their preferred candidates.
Despite the call for unity by party leaders, but the nomination for positions seemed to be following the faction trend as people who appear on the slate, do not appear on the other slates.
KwaZulu-Natal boosts the biggest number of delegates to the conference.
But the question is whether the province will remain influential and a king maker seeing division among members over their preferred candidates.
The province of KwaZulu-Natal as always will be sending the biggest number of delegates to the national conference followed by Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape.
About 806 branches in the province have qualified to attend the conference giving the province a share of 870 delegates to the conference.
About half of party branches in the province have held their branch general meetings, nominated their preferred candidates and elected delegates who will attend the conference.
Although the provincial leaders maintained that branch meetings thus far have been without hiccups, however some members say otherwise.
Some party members from ward 1, ward 4, and ward 96 claim their branch meetings were rigged.
Ward 96 in Mbumbulu Syabonga Gcabashe says:”That BGM was manipulated in such a way that a metro police was standing at the gate and he was taking your ID and check you in the voters roll if you reflect or not.”
“I personally phoned Gwede Mantashe on Monday complaining about this BGM, I sent him an email if the NEC does not respond to these issues we are intending to go to court.”
While some SACP members who have ANC membership also claim they were deliberately excluded from attending the ANC branch meeting at ward 4 in Nchanga west of Durban.
SACP Provincial chairperson James Nxumalo claim eThekwini Metro police were being used in a meeting to intimidate members who had a different view to that of the ANC’s eThekwini regional leadership.
“We didn’t know that there was to be an ANC meeting, and whoever is saying that we were invited is telling lies… and we are members of the ANC in good standing in the ward. What is supposed to be happen is that the SAPS is the one that is in charge of the security – if the view from the SAPS is that they need additional personnel, only the SAPS can actually extend that invitation to Metro police. ”
However the ANC in eThekwini has dismissed claims of massive disputes lodged by some branches disputing the outcome and processes leading up to their branch meetings.
ANC EThekwini regional secretary Bheki Ntuli says the role of police and metro police is only limited at ensuring safety and security during the meetings.
“Ward 1 is the biggest ward in the province, me and comrade Mdu we come from that ward, they wrote a clear programme how they were going to mobilise, and I live in that ward, while I was in my house I heard them loud hailing and it was loud and clear to everyone.’
“The BGM sat and everything went well and the next thing is ward 4, ward four is about regime change, so these comrade they want to hold on power.”
The party leadership in the province says so far the name of Dlamini Zuma is leading as branches continue with nominations.
ANC Youth League provincial chairperson, Kwazi Mshengu says about 400 branches are yet to nominate their preferred candidates.
“The nominations so far is proceeding very well as it stands now there are 247 branches that have nominated Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, 69 branches have nominated Cyril Ramaphosa and two branches have nominated Zweli Mkhize.”
Meanwhile it remains unclear whether court litigations including an application of leave to appeal by the provincial ANC leadership and an application for the execution of an order by five party members would have been finalised before the day of the conference.
