ANC meets to plan election strategy

The ANC will this morning discuss in detail how it will contest next year's local government elections.

The meeting in Johannesburg will also consider whether in future both national and local elections should be merged and held on one day.

The three-day meeting is also expected to deliberate on whether political office bearers should work as administrative heads in municipalities.

Speaking to journalists yesterday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said the party and its alliance partners - unions federation Cosatu and the SA Communist Party - will spend three days fine-tuning their election machinery and systems ahead of the local-government elections scheduled for the first half of next year.

"The [meeting] has been initiated as a result of observations of service-delivery inefficiencies in levels of government, whether in the form of gaps, duplications or the non-achievement of service delivery targets," Mantashe said.

He said that, as part of the ANC's preparations for the elections, the party had adopted a proposal that communities be involved in the selection of candidates.

He said that, for the first time, the ruling party would form a "screening committee in all of its branches that will evaluate every nominee candidate".

"The involvement of our communities will ensure that [they] not only vote for the ANC but also know and participate in the selection of candidates," said Mantashe.

Mantashe said the meeting will consider the proposal to hold one election that will include national, provincial and local polls.

But he cautioned that holding one election for the three levels of government had disadvantages.

"The current system keeps political parties moving all the time.

"If we merge elections and have elections once every five years, it might kill political vibrancy ... an element of complacency will creep in," Mantashe said.

According to the ANC's provincial and local government review discussion paper, released this week, allowing political office bearers to serve as municipal administrators has resulted in "tensions and blatant transgression of recognised roles and responsibilities".

"There is a strong view that the two-tier model of local government must be reformed and district municipalities disestablished."

Decisions on some of the proposals made at today's meeting will have to wait for the ANC's national conference, in 2012.