Sisulu’s nomination dispute is baseless, unfortunate: ANC Electoral Committee

The African National Congress’s (ANC) Electoral Committee has hit back at claims that it has manipulated the branch nomination processes.

The incumbent Deputy President David Mabuza’s campaign manager is calling for the committee to be fair when conducting its processes, whilst Tourism Minister and NEC member Lindiwe Sisulu has also lodged a complaint, citing that the filed nominations do not correspond with the data given during the announcement on Tuesday.

Both Mabuza and Sisulu failed to meet the threshold for branch nominations.

Baseless, unfortunate, and a misrepresentation of the constitution. That’s how the Electoral Committee has labelled and dismissed Sisulu’s dispute that the nominations do not correlate with the data given by the committee.

Sisulu was running for party president, but incumbent ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and former Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize were chosen instead.

The committee says its records indicate that Sisulu only received a total of 66 nominations, which is far less than the 25% she claims.

ANC’s Electoral Committee Chief Matsila says, “Now if comrades like Lindiwe Sisulu will cast aspersions on that kind of process, it means she’s blaming the regional and provincial secretaries, and that is not correct. Now the most important issue according to 12.7.1 of the ANC constitution stipulates that anybody that is successfully nominated for the position of the Top Six, that person should be nominated by a province and that is simply not the case with her.”

Another complaint is from the David Mabuza camp.

His campaign manager says he’s since lodged a dispute and has questioned the fairness of the work of the committee.

Mabuza lost out as he received 196 nominations for the position of president.

Mabuza’s campaign manager Andrew Baloyi says, “I’ll give you an example in Mpumalanga where comrade David Mabuza is coming from, when you look at the nomination list that is being provided by Kgalema Motlanthe’s nomination committee, it says we are nominated with 61 branches and it’s not true, we are nominated with 138 branches, and we can prove that. Our chief lobbyist is coming from Mpumalanga, if you look at that it tells you that there is a crisis. The announcement of the nomination list was naughty and damaging campaign of other candidates.”

The committee says it has not received any disputes from Mabuza’s camp.

“That’s where the problem lies, he goes public before he supplies the information and before the information is processed. What is the point of going public when there is not even a single letter from Comrade David Mabuza’s team. Campaign managers must exercise restraint in terms of what they say in public because they are bringing the ANC into disrepute.” says Matsila.

Matsila has urged party members to respect the work of the Electoral Committee.

Meanwhile, the rules as approved by the NEC, allow for a dispute resolution process to be concluded by end of this month.

Mabuza’s campaign manager unhappy with ANC nomination process: