PECs from nullified provinces barred from voting at ANC congress

The ANC has averted potential court action that could derail its 54th national conference by barring recently disbanded provincial executive councils and one regional executive committee from participating at the gathering as voting delegates.

This move will see disbanded ANC provincial executive committees from the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), along with the Bojanala regional committee executive – the North West’s biggest and most influential region – being reduced to observers at the national conference currently under way at Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.

The all-important decision was taken during an emergency ANC national executive committee (NEC) held this morning in the wake of devastating court rulings this week, which declared both KZN and Free State PEC’s and the Bojanala region as unlawful.

The decision also extends to branches that have been cited in other court cases.

The governing party’s NEC feared that the conference could been brought to its knees through potential court interdicts that could see the gathering being brought to an abrupt end should those structures that have been declared null and void by the courts, be allowed to participate as voting delegates.

The decision will see former African Union Commission chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ) lose crucial votes in what will be a tightly contested race against deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa. Each of the two PEC carrying 27 votes which were guaranteed for NDZ.

The KZN and Free State PECs, the Bojanala regional executive and several branches cited in the court cases are all strongholds of Dlamini-Zuma.

Outgoing ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said the decision was taken in order to avoid any “contamination” of conference processes.

“We will not allow anyone cited in court cases to vote. They will not be participating in this conference as voting delegates,” said Mantashe in a media briefing shortly after the NEC meeting.

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Mantashe, however, added that despite their newly declared non-voting status, delegates from the disbanded PEC’s and region will be allowed to remain in the conference given that they were already registered to attend the gathering. Crucially, those members would not participate in the conference decisions.

Courts in the Free State and KZN ruled this week that provincial executives in KZN and the Free State had been illegally constituted after losing factions challenged the outcomes of these conferences.

The nullified structures have indicated that they would appeal the court decisions.

Meanwhile the MK Military Veteran’s Association spokesperson Carl Niehaus said the association would continue to support Dlamini-Zuma despite the exclusion of Free State and KZN. “She is the implementer and only one able to move the radical economic transformation forward. The reason we came to the conference and MKMVA was whether there was a possibility for the implementation of the RET,” Niehaus said.

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