Colesberg – Newly Elected ANC Northern Cape provincial chair Zamani Saul has warned that not following the party’s 50 year tradition of having a deputy president succeed the president could plunge the party into crisis.  

“The past practices that informed the election of leadership ensured that we have [a] smooth transition from one leader to another without plunging the organisation into a crisis,” Saul said.

He was addressing delegates at the closing ceremony of the provincial elective conference in Colesberg.

The conference backed Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma.

It declared that the tradition of deputy ascending to presidency must be followed when the succession debate is opened by the party’s National Executive Committee.

“Delegates unanimously agreed that when the debate is opened by the NEC, the ANC Northern Cape will insist on the adherence to the tradition that [the] deputy president should be elected as president when the term of [the] current president comes to an end,” the province’s declaration read.

The Northern Cape, which is the smallest ANC province and is estimated to contribute about 5% of the voting delegates at the ANC December conference, is the first province to endorse Ramaphosa during a congress.

Saul said all the presidents of the ANC, without exception, were deputy presidents since 1967.

He said Ramaphosa should be tested through the Through the Eye of the Needle document that details the values and characters of an ANC leader.

“It is only when he does not pass the test that we could be tempted to look for other contenders. A smooth transition in leadership is at the heart of ensuring a stable and united movement,” Saul said.

Reshuffle

Saul was elected unopposed with his new executive after Premier Sylvia Lucas and her entire slate, declined nomination during the conference.

Lucas, who was touted to be backing Ramaphosa’s rival, former African Union Commission chair Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, was originally contesting Saul for the position of chair.

The Saul slate, branded #Zamdesh, after him and secretary Deshi Nxanga won all the top 5 executive positions and additional members of the provincial executive committee, leaving Lucas out in the cold in the province.

Her future as premier now hangs in the balance, following her cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday – a move which was rebuked by the ANC at Luthuli House and in the province.

Lucas and her supporters, including MECs and the Youth League, did not attend the final session of the conference – a move NEC convenor for the province Mcebisi Skwatsha described as worrying.

The conference took a resolution, warning that all deployees served at the “mercy” of the organisation and no one was above it.

Saul said the reshuffle, on the eve of the conference, was a “matter the PEC must urgently deal with”.

“We maintain our position that the reshuffle was done with a malicious intention to derail our preparations towards conference. If there were honest motives, the ANC and broader alliance would have been consulted, “ Saul said.

Uniting the province

Lucas said on Friday that participating in the elections would have been an “exercise in futility”, backing claims of discrepancies leading to the conference. She vowed not to give up the fight, and wants the NEC to review the process leading to the conference.

On Tuesday scores of branch leaders and members backing her, marched on Luthuli House, demanding to meet President Jacob Zuma. They wanted the conference postponed claiming it was being “stolen” through widespread gate keeping and manipulation of final branch audits.

The group said it instead met with party deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte who deployed former energy minister Tina Joemat Pettersson to the conference.

She is expected to write a report.

Lucas and her group lost their battle, when the conference accepted credentials that determined that legitimate delegates are attending, despite objections by Lucas’ group.

The Northern Cape elective conference was postponed several times over the allegations, however secretary general Gwede Mantashe finally gave it the green light to proceed.

Saul warned that the conference is the highest making decision body, and once it settled on disputes, its decisions bound all members.

“If any member… finds it difficult to abide by the decisions of conference, then that member defines him/herself outside the oragnisation,”  he said.

This comment was seen by some as a reference to Lucas’ decision to ask the NEC to review the conference.

Saul said they would now work on uniting the province, to prepare for the 2019 election campaign to increase the party’s majority in the province.

JOHANNESBURG – The South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) on Saturday officially endorsed Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to take over from President Jacob Zuma as African National Congress president at the ANC’s December 2017 elective conference.

In a statement issued after Sanco’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Johannesburg this weekend, Sanco general secretary Skhumbuzo Mpanza called for sensitivity in handling the leadership nomination processes of the leader of the alliance (of the ANC, the SA Communist Party, the Congress of SA Trade Unions, and Sanco).

Sanco believed it was important for the ANC to emerge from the December conference with a “leadership collective that will see the revolutionary movement” regain the lost ground seen in the August 3, 2016 municipal elections.

“Our analysis for the coming ANC elective conference in December 2017 is a potential for further deepened divisions in the movement. We thus request every member of our movement, especially leadership, to apply a sober, critical thinking on how should we approach the 54th ANC conference,” he said.

Read: ANC failing to lead, dividing society: Sanco

“We fear most the after effects that might even affect us in the 2019 national elections which we cannot afford to reach with a cracked organisation.

“Among our major interests is who becomes the president of the country as this will determine the life and survival of our communities. Thus our understanding is that, as Sanco, the only way we can determine the president of the country is to influence the election of the ANC president.

“We therefore believe that the most feasible way to retain unity and cohesion in our movement is to allow the current deputy president of the ANC to ascend to ANC president in the upcoming national conference in December,” Mpanza said.

Read: Zuma not welcome at May Day celebrations: unions

“We strongly believe this will help to deliver a most united ANC in the elections in 2019 and beyond. Furthermore, we trust the experience and capabilities that comrade Cyril Ramaphosa has in the presidential office which can benefit our movement and the society at large.

“This is the view we hold and as a matter of urgency we shall engage and persuade the leadership of the ANC on such.” Sanco further believed that the leadership collective should be made up by a united team determined to “pull the organisation out of the current quagmire”, Mpanza said.

African News Agency

Cape Town – ANC MP Dr Makhosi Khoza says she will always vote for the ANC’s survival, but not for an “amoral leader”.

Khoza aired more of her hard-hitting views on Facebook on Thursday, saying she cannot divorce moral conscience from political choices.

“When truth decomposes, duplicity thrives. Admittedly, none of the MPs are directly elected,” her post read.

“My political moral conscience signature is the ANC Constitution notably Rule 4.17. Please read it.

“I therefore cannot be expected to vote [for] an amoral leader whose behavioural practices liquidates the ANC at a speed faster than the spacecraft.

She said that, whenever she casts her vote, she will always vote for the ANC.

“This time around if called upon to vote, I solemnly declare that I’ll vote for the ANC survival and not ANC liquidation and [a] moral authority enemy.”

On Saturday, Khoza “welcomed” ANC Youth League eThekwini leaders who had taken issue with her post on Facebook, before proceeding to give them a “free lecture” on moral conscience.

“Well done comrades! I understand you want me to be recalled or disciplined. My answer to that is towards the end of this free ANC moral conscience lecture.

“Next step: read and debate the ANC Constitution Rule 4.17. Threats, intimidation, violence and intolerance are strictly forbidden. You are urged to advance your argument. Think ANC not personalities.

“Should [you] wish to invite me to facilitate the session as your senior comrade, you are more than welcome.”

Her 35 years experience from age 12 to 47 associated with the ANC “might just assist in enlightening you about the ANC moral authority,” she added, before repeating it was “free of charge”.

A motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma is currently before Parliament’s programming committee, pending the Constitutional Court’s ruling on whether it can be conducted via a secret ballot.

Khoza told News24 in April that the party could have handled the idea of a motion of no confidence better.

ANC MPs were now “in the lion’s den” as it considered their dilemma, amid widespread calls for Zuma to resign from office following his midnight Cabinet axings on March 30.

“Even if we win in numbers, we will not win as ANC,” she said.

She wished the ANC had prevented a vote by asking society to allow the party to “take the correct decision” at its consultative conference in June.

This was not the first time Khoza has aired her views in public against Zuma.

Also in April, Khoza posted on Facebook about the “injudiciousness” of her ANC leaders.

She said the politics of patronage had “finally claimed the sanity of my ANC leadership”.

“A triumphant story has turned tragic in my lifetime.”

The ANC was defining itself out of power when the majority of its people remain trapped in poverty, she said.