African National Congress National Executive Committee (ANC NEC) member and former Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize, says branches have nominated him to rescue the governing party from its many challenges.
On Tuesday, the party released names nominated by its 4 000 branches to contest the top-six positions at its elective conference in December.
The ANC’s Electoral Committee Chairperson, Kgalema Motlanthe, announced the outcomes of the nominations at Luthuli House.
Motlanthe said all the nominees had been thoroughly vetted as per the Electoral Committee rules.
Branches nominated Ramaphosa by an overwhelming majority for a second term with over 2 000 nominations, while Mkhize managed to get 916 votes.
Mkhize says the ANC leadership should not be consumed with infighting.
“We have been nominated by branches and we have responded to the call. The branches are feeling that there’s a need for us to do something to rescue the ANC from being a party that is deeply divided with factionalism and a party that has got good policies that have not been implemented. People have raised concerns about the rising levels of poverty, unemployment and food prices going up, and load shedding. We believe that the ANC needs to be effective in addressing those issues now. We believe that our call is to contribute in the implementation of the policies.”
In the report below, Ramaphosa and Mkhize nominated for the position of ANC president:
Addressing challenges
Mkhize says he believes that ridding the ANC of factions will enable the party to address the most pressing challenges faced by South Africans.
He says instead of the infighting, the party should address concerns of rising levels of poverty, unemployment, and the energy crisis.
“The ANC leadership should not be seen as consumed with factions…we could have been discussing the topical issue worrying the public, the issues of high fuel cost, dealing with load shedding and discussing what are we doing. The problem is this factionalism. One of my main focuses is how to get rid of factionalism in the party so that we have a united party. If you want to fight corruption, you can’t if you’re a faction. A faction protects its members, it doesn’t deal with justice or discipline in the party.”
Top six nominations
The infographic below details nominations for the party’s top six:
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