ANC candidate list disputes deepen ahead of ConCourt showdown – report
NWC members allegedly rejected the suggestion that several mayoral candidate omissions were accidental.
The African National Congress (ANC) is grappling with growing concerns over its candidate selection process as disputes surface within the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) regarding the omission of 51 mayoral candidates from the final lists. The NWC, composed of 27 members including the ANC’s top seven national officials, recently held a contentious discussion on the terms of reference for an investigation into the matter.
The controversy stems from an internal report that revealed 51 prominent ANC figures, such as Frank Chikane and Soviet Lekganyane, were excluded from the final candidate lists. While the party initially attributed the omissions to an administrative error, several NWC members disputed this explanation, pointing to a pattern suggesting that community-nominated mayoral candidates were disproportionately affected.
This has sparked fears that the omissions may have undermined efforts to enhance community influence in the selection of mayoral candidates. The dispute comes amid another candidate list crisis, where the ANC failed to meet the deadline for submitting 181 councillor nominations to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) ahead of the local government elections on November 4.
The ANC has since sought to have the affected candidates reinstated through the Electoral Court, but their application was unsuccessful. Now, the party has turned to the Constitutional Court, arguing that a negative ruling would impact the constitutional rights of both candidates and voters.
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