ANC meets IEC deadline for elections

ANC treasurer general Paul Mashatile yesterday assured the governing party’s members that it had managed to register its candidates to stand in the November 1 local government elections.

Mashatile was speaking outside the Lenasia South home of late Johannesburg mayor Jolidee Matongo, who died in a car accident on Saturday.

He said ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte would make sure that the ANC did not miss the deadline.

”She assured me that we will meet the deadline as set by the IEC (Electoral Commission of SA) for this afternoon (yesterday),” Mashatile said.

On Monday, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates to trade union federation Cosatu’s four-day central committee meeting that the ANC had worked hard to ensure it was able to register candidates in all wards and for all proportional representation lists, and had also managed to correct some of the weaknesses it had.

Last month, the ANC failed to register candidates in a number of wards in 93 municipalities across the country.

Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali warned that the ANC was in serious danger of losing many municipalities to unwieldy coalitions and that this would have a negative impact on services and workers.

”We need to discuss what can we do as affiliates and Cosatu to mobilise workers to go out and vote in their numbers.

“What can we do to convince workers to give the ANC another chance and to show how, despite its many blunders, (it) has also delivered many good things for workers?” he asked.

Ntshalintshali continued: “We need to explain to workers that of all the political parties, it is only the ANC that has ever championed workers’ demands.

We need to leave with a clear programme that will ensure we help deliver a victory to the ANC on November 1.”

Duarte is expected to provide details of the ANC’s councillor candidate registration process, and give a breakdown of the demographics of the candidates, including gender and youth representation, in municipalities.

She will also outline the measures the ANC is putting in place to safeguard the integrity and credibility of its councillor candidates, in line with the recommendations of the party’s electoral committee chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe.

Ramaphosa indicated on Monday that due to the process of selecting candidates being new, the party had experienced teething problems. all

”We also received troubling reports of alleged misconduct, transgressions of list guidelines and manipulation of lists.

“The ANC will investigate all these reports and allegations. Where necessary, we will institute disciplinary measures,” he said.

The ANC was not the only party to miss the initial August 23 deadline to register its candidates.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said that his party was now ready to meet the IEC’s deadline.

The party joined the ANC’s call for the reopening of candidate registration after it had also failed to meet the IEC’s August 23 deadline, blaming this on glitches in the commission’s IT system.

After missing the August 23 deadline, UDM secretary-general Bongani Msomi told Independent Media that on that day they had been adversely affected by technical glitches, and that the IEC’s system had repeatedly kicked them off it.

“We will meet the deadline, so we are okay now, we have no problem. We welcome that judgment because if it said no, that would have meant that all the names changed and captured after that would have not been accepted.

“We will meet the deadline because we have finished our work, so by that time I’m sure a lot of our names will already be loaded on to the system of the IEC. So let me say, we are ready,” Holomisa said.

Holomisa was referring to the Constitutional Court’s judgment on Monday in which it dismissed the DA’s challenge to the IEC’s decision to reopen the candidate registration process.