Court bid to set aside election of ANC top six leaders withdrawn

KwaZulu-Natal businessman Vincent Myeni has decided not to proceed with his urgent court application to set aside the election of the ANC’s top six leaders at the party’s 54th national conference last month.

Myeni wanted the High Court in Pretoria to overturn the election of the entire top six, including the election of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as the ANC’s new leader, and wanted the court to order that the election must be rerun.

Meyeni’s advocate, Francois Botes SC, confirmed that his client did not have enough time to file a replying affidavit in the application, and had given instructions for the matter to be removed from the urgent roll.

He said there have also been further developments that might lead to a settled, which he said was always better than to bring the application before court.

If Myeni wanted to continue with his application, he would have to bring it in the ordinary course, which could take several months, he added.

Myeni alleged in court papers the election of the top 6 had been tainted because one of the EleXions Agency officials who oversaw the elective process had failed to disclose that one of the ANC’s elected top six had fathered her child.

He also questioned the credentials of voting delegates and how they were verified, and alleged the missing 65 votes that were not included in the final tally at the conference had not been adequately explained by the party.

ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte said in an opposing affidavit the application was not urgent, and Myeni, who stated he was the chairperson of a branch in Ward 32 in the Msunduzi subregion, had also not shown that he was an ANC member in good standing or even a representative of a bona fide ANC branch.

Duarte described the application as an abuse of the court process and frivolous. She denied Myeni’s claims of irregularities as “utterly spurious and without foundation”.

She said the official involved denied Myeni’s claim that he was in a love relationship with the EleXions Agency official or that he had fathered a child with her, and said the allegations could have been made “with malicious intent”.

She also questioned why Myeni had found nothing wrong with the election of the ANC’s national executive committee at the same conference, but questioned the election of the top six.

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