The ANC has called a special national executive committee meeting this weekend, to finalise mayoral candidate lists for the highly contested metros and district councils.
Provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said in preparation for the weekend meeting, the provincial deployment committee (PDC) met in Calata House yesterday to discuss submissions from regions.
The party’s guidelines give powers to regional deployment committees to come up with three names which can be considered as mayoral candidates.
The focus of the Saturday meeting in Luthuli House will be Nelson Mandela Metro, Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, Mangaung, Ethekwini, the city of Johannesburg as well as the DA-controlled City of Cape Town.
The ANC NEC has agreed to go public with mayoral candidates for all district municipalities before the August 3 elections.
The Dispatch reported two weeks ago that strategic municipalities including King Sabata Dalindyebo, Makana, Lukhanji and Coega would also be included on the list.
Mabuyane said all the regional deployment committees of the affected municipalities were going to be grilled by the PDC the whole day yesterday, on why they had chosen the personalities in the order they did.
“Once we find each other as PDC and the region, we will then compile a list of mayoral candidates which we will submit to the special NEC on Saturday.
“We are taking so many things into consideration when crafting such lists but most of all is to make sure that the ANC is united so that we can unite the communities we lead behind these mayoral candidates. That is our focus,” said Mabuyane.
This comes while the provincial leaders are working day and night trying to douse protests in at least 20 wards across the province where ANC members and supporters are contesting the candidates submitted by the party to contest as ward councillors.
Mabuyane said only 20 of 705 ward nominees had problems – with most being concentrated in Amathole, Nelson Mandela Metro and in Buffalo City.
In BCM there were only two cases.
The ANC guidelines give branch members the prerogative to nominate three names as ward candidates in a properly constituted branch general meeting (BGM).
This year, branches were instructed to subject the nominees to scrutiny before members of the public.
In this process, the regional screening committee was assigned to take note of public concerns and finalise the list of nominees informed by such feedback.
Mabuyane said in most of the hotspots, the problems were created by the screening committees, who in some cases swapped candidates around without giving valid reasons.
“We have intervened in most of these cases, but some were brought to the province’s attention after the IEC registration deadline,” said Mabuyane.
He called on branches to rather visit their regional office,s where they would be given a better understanding of how the process was followed.
ANC prepares to finalise its mayoral lists
Provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said in preparation for the weekend meeting, the provincial deployment committee (PDC) met in Calata House yesterday to discuss submissions from regions.
The party’s guidelines give powers to regional deployment committees to come up with three names which can be considered as mayoral candidates.
The focus of the Saturday meeting in Luthuli House will be Nelson Mandela Metro, Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, Mangaung, Ethekwini, the city of Johannesburg as well as the DA-controlled City of Cape Town.
The ANC NEC has agreed to go public with mayoral candidates for all district municipalities before the August 3 elections.
The Dispatch reported two weeks ago that strategic municipalities including King Sabata Dalindyebo, Makana, Lukhanji and Coega would also be included on the list.
Mabuyane said all the regional deployment committees of the affected municipalities were going to be grilled by the PDC the whole day yesterday, on why they had chosen the personalities in the order they did.
“Once we find each other as PDC and the region, we will then compile a list of mayoral candidates which we will submit to the special NEC on Saturday.
“We are taking so many things into consideration when crafting such lists but most of all is to make sure that the ANC is united so that we can unite the communities we lead behind these mayoral candidates. That is our focus,” said Mabuyane.
This comes while the provincial leaders are working day and night trying to douse protests in at least 20 wards across the province where ANC members and supporters are contesting the candidates submitted by the party to contest as ward councillors.
Mabuyane said only 20 of 705 ward nominees had problems – with most being concentrated in Amathole, Nelson Mandela Metro and in Buffalo City.
In BCM there were only two cases.
The ANC guidelines give branch members the prerogative to nominate three names as ward candidates in a properly constituted branch general meeting (BGM).
This year, branches were instructed to subject the nominees to scrutiny before members of the public.
In this process, the regional screening committee was assigned to take note of public concerns and finalise the list of nominees informed by such feedback.
Mabuyane said in most of the hotspots, the problems were created by the screening committees, who in some cases swapped candidates around without giving valid reasons.
“We have intervened in most of these cases, but some were brought to the province’s attention after the IEC registration deadline,” said Mabuyane.
He called on branches to rather visit their regional office,s where they would be given a better understanding of how the process was followed.
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