Durban — The much-anticipated ANC elective conference in KwaZulu-Natal will go ahead next week after branches finally met the 70% threshold that was required.
The party’s provincial spokesperson, Nhlakanipho Ntombela, told the Daily News on Thursday that out of just 800 branches that had qualified for the conference, 644 had been given the green light by the national office report, which came back this week.
He said the number was expected to grow since there were branches that would wrap up activities this weekend. Nevertheless, he said the threshold has been met and the conference would go ahead.
“We can confirm that we have met the required threshold, so there is no reason why the conference should not go ahead next week,” Ntombela said.
The conference was to be held this weekend, but the party had to postpone it to give branches that failed to conclude matters another chance to do so since the threshold had not been met. One of the regions that were lagging behind was eThekwini, which had recorded only 40 branches by the June 30 deadline. The region’s failure to sit enough branches had impacted the entire process since it is the biggest region.
The regional secretary, Musa Nciki, had cited the April floods as the reason for his region’s failure to sit more branches before the June 30 deadline.
He said due to the floods, which destroyed infrastructure and displaced many people, especially in eThekwini, they had to delay branch meetings because many people were affected and roads were not accessible, while many people were still searching for missing family members.
After the extension, which ended last weekend, the region managed to increase the number of branches to 79, according to Ntombela.
Nciki had told the newspaper last week that his target was 80 branches, which will give the region about 400 delegates to the conference.
Ntombela further explained that another extension for branches was granted until this weekend because scanning machines used to audit delegates were faulty last week.
Outlining the nomination process, Ntombela said nominated members would only be known on the first day of the conference where the nomination boxes will be opened.
He said for any member to qualify for election, he or she must have received 25% of the total branches that were able to be represented at the conference, adding that those who will be nominated from the floor must at least receive 30% of the voting delegates.
It appears as though many nominations would come from the floor since the newspaper was told that many regions were only choosing delegates.
Regions said in trying to avoid slates and forge unity, they nominated only one or two people and left other positions open for engagements with other regions. The all-powerful position of chairperson is expected to be fiercely contested by current chairperson Sihle Zikalala, businessman Sandile Zungu and Finance MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
Daily News