ANC candidates set for vetting

Voters in the province’s major towns, including the metros and municipalities of Buffalo City, King Sabata Dalindyebo, Makana, Nelson Mandela and Lukhanji, will know who the ANC’s mayoral candidates are before they make their mark on August 3.

This follows a national executive committee decision last week to announce mayoral candidates for all metros, district municipalities and select “strategic” local municipalities in each province.

The decision means some posters with the face of ANC President Jacob Zuma, which were hung up across towns and villages in the run-up to the 2011 local elections, will now be replaced with the faces of ANC mayoral candidates in all the identified municipalities.

The party does have regional list conferences where proportional representatives (PR) candidates for councils are voted for in order of popularity.

But, according to ANC policy, being at the top of the list does not mean this person will be the mayoral candidate. Take Buffalo City Metro (BCM) in 2011. Then-mayor Zukiswa Ncitha was number 46 on the PR list, but was moved to the top 10 closer towards the elections, and after the elections was elected mayor.

Since the dawn of South Africa’s democracy, the only residents who had the privilege of knowing the identity of an ANC mayoral candidate before election day were in the city of Cape Town.

This decision made by the ANC saw party posters in the mother city depicting the face of mayoral candidate Tony Ehrenreich.

ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane confirmed this week that along with the two metros and district municipalities, “strategic local municipalities – in our case King Sabata Dalindyebo, Lukhanji, Makana and Kouga – will fall into that category”.

He said this followed the recent NEC decision to have a face for all the strategic municipalities, including the metros and districts.

Mabuyane said the party’s process stated that regions would have to send three names to the provincial list committee, and “the province will work with the national office to come up with the face of the ANC for the elections, taking into consideration the dynamics of that specific municipality.

“In these areas, voters will go to the elections knowing who is the mayoral candidate for the party,” said Mabuyane.

If the party wins the election, the face on the election poster will be that of the incoming mayor.

Last Friday, the party’s national list committee chopped and changed recommended candidates for municipalities across the country. Once the names are registered after being subjected to a vetting process, the province and national leaders will finalise the list of mayoral candidates for the identified municipalities to lead the ANC election campaign towards the August 3 election.