ANC Limpopo election 'credible'

No one has challenged the results or election process that saw Cassel Mathale declared the ANC's Limpopo chairman, a party official says.

The newly-elected provincial secretary in Mathale's camp, Soviet Lekganyane, said the outcome of the elective conference was credible.

"If there was any dispute relating to elections, the conference would not have continued through the second round of elections for additional members."

Lekganyane said this was evidence of an "authentic and genuine" process.

It emerged on Saturday that some African National Congress Youth League members had allegedly been duplicating tags for bogus members, at a local printing shop, that would have allowed them to vote. A journalist who went to the shop after being tipped off was hit with a brick on his head, allegedly by two men who demanded to know why he was taking pictures.

On Sunday, African National Congress provincial spokesman David Masondo said the party viewed the incident in a very serious light.

Mathale beat his challenger, arts and culture deputy minister Joe Phaahla, by 601 votes to 519 during Sunday's election.

Lekganyane spoke out against succession debates, saying the party should focus more on how to best prepare for the organisation's elective conference in Mangaung in 2012, when the party would celebrate its centenary.

Since the Limpopo conference started delegates had made it clear though chanting and singing Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe's praises, while denouncing and mocking President Jacob Zuma, that they wanted a change in leadership in Mangaung.

One song referred to Zuma's remarks during his rape trial in 2006, when he told the court he took a shower after having sex with an HIV-positive woman. He was acquitted.

During the song Mathale supporters and suspended ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, a close ally of Mathale's, lifted their hands over their heads, in an imitation of the shower head cartoonist Zapiro uses in his drawings of Zuma.

"If there is any conduct or attitude that has been unbecoming or un-ANC, it will be condemned by resolutions of the conference," Lekganyane said.

The conference voted for provincial executive committee members on Monday. Results would be announced on Tuesday. Malema is among the 40 nominees on the list.