Members of the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) have rejected the explanation given by the party’s “top seven” national officials that mayoral contenders such as Frank Chikane were left off the candidate list for the local government elections submitted to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) because of an administrative “error”.
They want the officials who were tasked with interviewing mayoral candidates and ensuring they were added to the IEC list — led by President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula — to explain their conduct in an independent forensic investigation into the entire list debacle and the party’s failure to submit councillor candidates in at least six municipalities.
This issue, according to several NWC figures, was raised in a heated meeting where members of the top party structure argued over the terms of reference of the forensic investigation the party has agreed to undertake to uncover what happened regarding the electoral list.
The NWC members say it cannot be a coincidence that all the mayoral candidates nominated by community members, and not through ANC ward structures, were the ones left off the list in the affected provinces.
The Sunday Times last month reported that at least 51 candidates interviewed as part of an intervention to claw back support were not added to the final list of candidates submitted to the IEC owing to an internal ANC administrative mistake. Some 23 of the 51 candidates were nominees for metropolitan municipalities.
The names include heavyweights such as:
- party veteran Frank Chikane, one of the ANC’s mayoral candidates for Johannesburg;
- Ntombi Mekgwe in Ekurhuleni; and
- Soviet Lekganyane in Polokwane.
The NWC members who spoke to the Sunday Times this week said the exclusion of these names reeked of a deliberate attempt to sabotage a “reform agenda” that sought to place the preferences of communities at the centre of mayoral candidate choices.
You can tell someone maybe does not believe in this reform, or that communities have a right to [choose their own candidates]
— ANC NWC member
“We want to understand because we believe now it was not a coincidence,” said one NWC member. “At least we know now that Lungisa was removed, but we can’t accept that you say all the [other omissions] were an error. You have not said anything about Soviet [Lekganyane], but we know he’s not on the list. Who removed him? Who removed Nocawe [Mafu] in Buffalo [City]? Who removed Frank [Chikane]?
“Is it a coincidence that all the reform candidates nominated [didn’t make] the list?”
This source said party officials had been confronted over the issue, but no clear answers had been given. The member concluded that the list exclusions were possibly done deliberately and said the terms of reference for the forensic investigation had to be extended to include probing this issue.
“You can tell someone maybe does not believe in this reform, or that communities have a right to [choose their own candidates]. Someone [carried out the list exclusions on purpose], and that was our point. That’s why we wanted this independent investigation.
“So we must accept that the list deviates from the guidelines and that the list [also] deliberately deviates from the reform programme of the ANC. It’s by design. It’s not a coincidence — it can’t be.”
Another NWC source said the list exclusion issue had not come up sharply in the NWC meeting last week. However, they said it was concerning that the names were left off the list without an acceptable explanation.
Nevertheless, this source confirmed that NWC members had strenuously argued that the forensic investigation also had to probe why and how the officials made this mistake.
“We [said we] wanted an independent forensic investigation into the entire process. [We said we wanted an answer to] the question of how [the reform candidates] got left out, because we needed to know who gave the instruction that Frank [Chikane had to] be removed from the list when we know [he] was on the list. Who gave the instruction to remove the mayor from Engcobo, the mayor of Alfred Nzo, and so on?”
“If you have the forensic investigation they were proposing, which only looks at the Eastern Cape, then all of these other issues will remain unanswered. So that was the call. I wouldn’t separate it and say we were necessarily only rejecting the fact that they left out the candidates — we wanted the whole thing investigated [to find out] why those comrades were left out.”
According to the NWC members who spoke to the Sunday Times, they did not accept the explanation that an honest mistake had led to the candidates’ names being left off the list.
“We don’t accept it was a mistake, and that mistake has not been explained. Every person claims ignorance of how it happened,” said one party leader.
“I mean, there are allegations flying [about] that so-and-so gave an instruction to somebody in the province to remove, say, Frank [Chikane] from the list. I don’t want to go into names, because at this stage it is all just allegations, but now no-one is taking responsibility for that and saying, ‘Indeed, that’s what I did.’ So if there is anyone in the province who was told to remove Frank [Chikane], that person … must explain who gave them the instruction, and why.”
If you say [the problem lies with] the officials, then what about us as the NEC? Because when we adopted the list of names, did we not see that those people were not on the list? No-one stood up to say, ‘But those people are not there’
— NWC member
Another NWC member said it was generally accepted that national officials blundered in failing to ensure the likes of Chikane were added to the list, as this was a task given solely to them.
“Indeed, I believe [the blame lies with] the officials who were supposed to do it, [who were supposed] to say that [the process had been completed]. The list was with them, [and they had to] insert the names as the officials. But they never sat [down and did] it,” the senior party leader said.
“The officials basically never finished [processing the] mayoral candidates. They didn’t do it. They never even sat [down] to say [in] interviews, ‘[These are] the top three candidates. They didn’t do that. [For] that, as officials, they must take the blame. [In that regard], I agree they were wrong.”
But this leader also defended the officials, saying they could not have made the mistake deliberately, to the detriment of the party.
The leader said the NWC and the national executive committee (NEC) were equally to blame, as they were the party structures tasked with adopting and ratifying the entire list of candidates.
They also failed to notice that these 51 mayoral candidates were missing from the final list submitted to the IEC, the leader argued.
“It was the officials who were supposed to include those names, of course, but the NWC also will have to be blamed because they also agreed. The NEC will also have to be blamed because they also agreed. The NEC were supposed to include those names, but the NEC did not do it.
“So if you say [the problem lies with] the officials, then what about us as the NEC? Because when we adopted the list of names, did we not see that those people were not on the list? No-one stood up to say, ‘But those people are not there.’
“They were supposed to say, ‘But, officials, where are these names?’ Because when we adopt a list of names, we must adopt everything, because you can’t change the list later on when the NEC is finished. You must change it and take it back to the NEC. So when the NEC sees there are names missing, it must change the list.
“To change the list and include people on it, the rule says you need 80% of the NEC. The officials can’t [make changes] on their own — they can only suggest [changes], and the NEC [can then adopt them]. But no-one in the NEC stood up to say, ‘But where are these people?’”
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