Africa-Press – South-Africa. The ANC’s new, multi-pronged verification process, implemented to prevent voter-rigging, has been blamed for the delay to the start of the Mpumalanga provincial conference on Friday.
The conference is the ruling party’s first since the Covid-19 outbreak.
It was scheduled to start at 10:00 on Friday and was meant to test the ANC’s readiness to hold conferences under Covid-19 regulations. However, delays in the registration process hampered the start of the conference.
Initially, there was speculation the delays were the result of an urgent application brought by two disgruntled Mpumalanga ANC members on Thursday, who had approached the court to interdict the conference from taking place.
ANC bosses in Mpumalanga, however, vehemently denied the claims.
The matter was heard by the Johannesburg High Court on Friday morning.
Mpumalanga conference to be held despite court action, ANC insists
ANC national executive committee (NEC) deployee to Mpumalanga, Dakota Legoete, said the ANC’s Mpumalanga conference would proceed, despite the urgent interdict application being heard simultaneously at the Johannesburg High Court.
“At 10:00, we opposed the application, as the ANC. The applicants were not ready, and they then asked the court for an extension of two hours and the court proceedings started at 12:00. But we did not stop the process of ensuring that we successfully host a conference.
“Even now, with the arguments being done in court, we are still processing with the conference – until we are told otherwise by a court of law. But, for now, we are going ahead,” said Legoete.
He said the ANC, in their opposing affidavit, argued that the matter was not urgent to warrant an interdict as the parties bringing the application were involved in a dispute resolution process and had been informed of the outcomes a while back.
“They [the applicants], therefore, cannot argue urgency when the time has elapsed. The ANC has already done reservations and made arrangements for the conference to go ahead,” said Legoete.
Legoete said that, given the party’s resolve to go ahead with the conference, the only thing delaying the start on Friday was the new membership verification process.
“We are piloting our new membership verification process regarding its conferencing capabilities. We have started in Mpumalanga, where we are able to track a branch general meeting outcome in terms of delegates nominated, their full names and ID numbers. [We can] track them against our membership system in terms of the correctness of the ID and correctness of the details of the delegate.”
He said that, once a delegate came in, they would take a photo, which would be linked to the ID number, branch and region where that particular delegate came from. From there, they were accredited, with a proper barcode.
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“There is no way, like before, where someone may just change their accreditation at the doorstep, which lead to vote-rigging,” said Legoete.
The Mpumalanga ANC’s spokesperson, Sasekani Manzini, confirmed that the piloting of the new verification and accreditation process was to blame for the severe delays.
Manzini called for patience, saying the accreditation process had verified 80% of the over 770 delegates and guests expected to attend.
The ANC’s provincial task team coordinator, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, spoke after a scuffle broke out between delegates and security at the regulation venue.
Ntshalintshali said the delays were as a result of the incorrect capturing of names and last-minute changes to voting delegates.
“There are people who used their maiden surnames in registering – and then, when they came here, their IDs had a different surname. This caused some of the delays.
“There have also been changes to some voting delegates who, for one reason or the other, are no longer able to vote [and it was] decided to appoint someone else in their place. This has caused delays,” said Ntshalintshali.
Manzini said the conference’s opening remarks, which are set to be delivered by the ANC’s treasurer-general, Paul Mashatile, will take place in the afternoon.
“Our leader, Paul Mashatile, has arrived and is waiting for everyone to begin the conference,” said Manzini.
Some of the other delegates expected to attend the conference are the president of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, who will give the closing speech, ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe and all NEC members from the province.
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