NC ANC heads to elective conference

Finally the Northern Cape ANC has announced a date for the holding of its elective provincial conference to elect a new chairperson and other executives.

The party called on members to work to achieve unity and find common ground in the run-up to the conference to be held from 8 to 12 March 2017 at Colesburg in the Prixley ka Seme region.

The announcement followed a special provincial executive committee meeting held on Monday where it dealt with preparations for the upcoming conference, which would see provincial secretary Zamani Saul contesting for provincial chairperson against premier Sylvia Lucas.

The race between Saul and Lucas has taken the national factionalism trend in the ANC. Saul is known to be in the Cyril Ramaphosa camp while Lucas is on Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s side.

Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma are expected to contest to replace Jacob Zuma as ANC president and subsequently the country’s president.

Saul has the political edge over Lucas with experience gained in being active in all the ANC structures throughout his political career while Lucas is a novice who was recruited from the Democratic Alliance.

Saul yesterday said a final audit by a national audit team showed that of the 208 party branches 179, or 87%, were in good standing. This placed the province above the minimum 70% threshold required before it held an elective congress.

The audit report, which was signed by the ANC secretary-general, showed that the biggest region, Francis Baard, would have 101 delegates going to the conference, the  ZF Mgcawu region would have 83, John Taolo Gaetsewe 81, Pixley ka Seme 98 and Namakwa 54 delegates.

Saul said the total number of branches to vote would be 417.

He said the PEC resolved to allocate seven delegates for each of the ANC Youth, Women and Veterans’ leagues with regional executives getting three delegates each. The provincial conference would have a total of 453 voting delegates altogether when including other structures.

“The special PEC resolved that the nomination branch general meetings should take place from 30 January to 20 February 2017,” Saul said.

He said all the branch general meetings must strictly adhere to the ANC constitutional prescripts, values and traditions and members must freely express their views on all matters on the agenda.

The congress would elect the office-bearers and 30 additional members into the provincial executive committee.

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