The ANC is yet to announce its mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg.
The bitter war between Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero and the MMC for finance in the City of Johannesburg, Loyiso Masuku, has spilt into the provincial and national levels of the ANC.
This comes after the surfacing of new information that indicates that there could have been some irregularities with the ANC Johannesburg regional conference, where Masuku replaced Morero as the regional chairperson.
On Sunday, ballot papers that were used in that election were found dumped in a backyard at a house belonging to the owner of the elections’ management company.
According to the Mail and Guardian, the company’s owner is allegedly a City of Johannesburg employee and is believed to have close ties with Masuku. The Citizen sent questions to the City of Johannesburg but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Morero has also alleged that money was used to buy votes in this election. All these claims are being investigated by the police and the ANC electoral commission, including the secretary-general’s office.
The elective conference was hotly contested and resulted in all of Morero’s allies being defeated, with Masuku winning a landslide victory. This led her to become the first female chairperson of the ANC in Johannesburg.
A warning to the party
Former ANC provincial secretary in Gauteng TK Nciza recently described what is happening with the ANC in Johannesburg as “anarchy.”
He posted a video on his social media accounts expressing his views.
He said the warring factions were putting the ANC on its back foot in a crucial election year.
“The Johannesburg conference and its leadership [are] constantly having a dark cloud, it does not matter what faction you come from, this is the year of the elections, we cannot do this to the organisation, he said.
Nciza suggested that there is nothing untoward with the ballot papers used in that conference being found dumped at the house of the owner of the election agency.
“The owner can have offices in her house, or whatever the case may be, it is the owner, they own the agency, why the leadership did not go and fetch those ballot papers themselves nobody knows. Why do we have cops jumping and creating such a drama to create such a drama, crime scene in Johannesburg, it is wrong on all accounts.”
“The ANC cannot be finished while we are looking,” he added.
He said he did not mind being called in by his party for the comments he had made on this matter
According to the ANC, there was an agreement between the party and the elections agency for the ballot papers to be stored at a safe place after the conclusion of the elective conference.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has also requested a thorough investigation into the matter.
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Region responds
On the other hand, ANC Johannesburg secretary, Sasabona Manganye, said he does not see a problem with the ballot papers being found at the home of the owner of the electoral agency. This is despite the SABC reporting that when police arrived at the owner’s house, she tried to hide the ballot papers.
“The issue of ballot papers staying at an elections agency, I do not know of any electoral conference in the country where the ballot papers are not with the electoral agency. If they are not with the electoral agency, then those ballot papers’ credibility is questionable. They cannot be utilised for any other thing; it means they have been tampered with,” he told Newzroom Afrika.
He described the elections as free and fair.
Theo Neethling, a political analyst at the University of the Free State (UFS), told The Citizen that the current confusion over the legitimacy of the Johannesburg regional conference is an indication of corruption within the ANC.
“Masuku’s win by a margin of 35 votes was politically significant not only because it made her the first female chairperson to be elected as ANC regional chairperson but also because it immediately became entangled in controversy over the alleged discovery of the ballot papers at the private residence in Pretoria,” he said.
He said he had noted the remarks of Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni on the matter as she tried to downplay the implications of such a discovery at the private home of the election agency’s owner.
“She cautioned against premature conclusions, and she defended the robustness of the ANC process, but her remarks acknowledge that weaknesses do exist and the language of remedies and recourse points to an organisation that is perpetually in repair mode,” he said.
Sanco criticises ANC
Meanwhile, the ANC’s alliance partner, the South African National Civic Association (Sanco), has criticised the ANC for failing to ensure that the regional elective conference is carried out without credibility questions. It also slammed the ANCYL in Johannesburg for being defensive about the complaints that have been made about the credibility of the conference.
The ANCYL in Johannesburg has been critical of Morero’s leadership and has called for him to be replaced by Masuku as mayor.
“We find it deeply regrettable, though not surprising, that the ANCYL has opted to evade the content of the issues raised and instead reduce a grave political indictment to a crude allegation of failing to accept democratic outcomes of the ANC Greater Johannesburg Regional conference.
“This is not merely an act of political defensiveness; it is a refusal to engage in thought. An individual or organisation that cannot tolerate constructive criticism signals the beginning of its own intellectual, moral stagnation and decay,” said Sanco.
There is a view that the Johannesburg regional conference is a battle between a faction of the party belonging to Fikile Mbalula, who has been linked to Morero, and Paul Mashatile, who is linked to Masuku’s faction.
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