Motlanthe advised ANC to start candidate list process a year before elections, but was ignored

The ANC could have averted the candidate-list submission debacle had its national executive committee (NEC) adopted and adhered to a timeline proposed by the electoral committee led by former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe.

According to ANC NEC members, this could have prevented a crisis that saw the party still amending its councillor candidates just hours before the IEC submission deadline.

The Sunday Times can reveal that Motlanthe’s committee advised the ANC in May last year to start its list processes much earlier, warning that finalising the process closer to the deadline exposed the party to significant risks.

According to ANC NEC members, the committee proposed that the party select and announce its mayoral candidates in November, a year before the elections, and start the list process in February. This would have given the party six months to resolve disputes and address any other issues arising from the process.

But the ANC rejected the proposal, opting instead to begin its internal process of calling for mayoral candidate nominations only in May — six months after the date proposed in Motlanthe’s timeline.

The decision to reject the proposal, according to some NEC members, is why the ANC now finds itself in a debacle in which it failed to meet the deadline to submit a full list of councillors who will contest seats in the November local government elections.

The party’s secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, on Tuesday admitted that Motlanthe’s committee had made these proposals, but argued that the party had reservations about the timeline, including concerns that announcing candidates too early could lead to a prolonged period of infighting over mayoral and councillor candidates.

“Yes, that is correct. We wanted to do that, but it was not pronounced. It did not happen, it’s not a fault of one person. It’s correct, it’s true that we wanted to do this thing earlier on, but we were overtaken by events,” said Mbalula.

According to Mbalula, the NEC rejected the proposed timeline because the party felt it was too early to announce mayoral candidates, which could have led to a prolonged period of infighting.

We have never asked for an exemption. We have never asked for an extension. We are not asking for one now …

—  Fikile Mbalula, ANC secretary-general

“We did not want to put the issue of mayoral [candidates] ahead of the selection because it will rupture, as it does now, the list process. There is rupture. You will see when the lists of candidates are pronounced on Monday next week, when a person now starts to see the reality that I am not on the list,” said Mbalula.

“The Electoral Committee of comrade Kgalema wanted us to start the list processes of councillors by February and to us it was too early because we were going to lose focus on our work when people start to fight ... about positions.”

Mbalula said it was wrong to suggest that the failure to adhere to the deadline proposed by Motlanthe’s committee could be attributed to one person.

His comments come after the Sunday Times reported at the weekend that some ANC NEC members wanted Mbalula hauled over the coals and held personally responsible for the failure to submit the full list.

Mbalula argued that the list-submission debacle was being blown out of proportion, as the ANC was able to successfully register 97% and 90% of its ward and proportional representation councillor candidates, respectively, across the country.

Of the 9,128 candidates lodged on the IEC system, only 181 are in dispute, affecting six municipalities in the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.

According to Mbalula, the candidates had already been captured on the IEC system, but a “technical difficulty” prevented their administrator from “clicking submit” before last week’s deadline.

The ANC’s Electoral Court case is centred on asking the IEC to regard the captured candidates as having been submitted, arguing that the fault was not on its side.

Mbalula said this was not a plea made only on behalf of the ANC, but also for 44 other political parties that faced the same difficulty.

“We have never asked for an exemption. We have never asked for an extension. We are not asking for one now ...” said Mbalula.

“And to those who have warned the commission against giving the ANC ‘preferential treatment’, I say this plainly. The ANC wants none.”

“Whatever relief the court grants, the movement has asked that it apply to every affected party on the same terms — to the 44 other parties as much as to us. If the ANC succeeds, 2,093 candidates who are not ours succeed with us. That is the only kind of relief this movement would accept.”