Africa-Press – South-Africa. Former president Kgalema Motlanthe, who oversaw the ANC Veterans’ League conference’s electoral process, hailed the “good performance” that avoided leadership squabbles in electing unopposed the league’s 27-member executive committee that included 17 women.
On Sunday, in what party veterans said was a sign of their maturity, the league’s nine provincial structures each nominated two names, as well as nine other luminary leaders, to form part of its national executive committee – the elders’ highest decision-making structure.
The conference is in Boksburg, Gauteng.
The national executive includes Reverend Frank Chikane; the Presidency’s former director-general during Thabo Mbeki’s administration, Lisa Seftel; the executive of the National Economic Development and Labour Council; as well as former government minister and current ANC MP, Dipuo Peters.
The conference – Sunday is the last of its three days – was attended by more than 450 voting delegates.
Representatives from all nine provinces told the ANC’s electoral commission, headed by Motlanthe, that voting would not be necessary.
The representatives said that the names chosen reflected the ANC’s non-racialism and non-sexism policy for electing leaders, that the party adopted at its 1991 national conference – the first after its unbanning.
The delegates added that there should be a “geographical spread” in leadership so that all provinces can be represented in the national executive.
After the names were adopted by conference, Motlanthe gushed that the veterans returned what he called “the real ANC” by not fighting for positions, and focusing on policy.
Motlanthe said:
On Saturday, the league’s top five structure was elected, with Snuki Zikalala and Mavuso Msimang emerging as president and deputy president respectively, after being chosen unopposed.
Anti-apartheid activist Ilva Mackay-Langa will be the veterans’ secretary-general and former human settlements minister Connie September her deputy. Fazel Randera rounds up the league’s top five structure as the treasurer-general.
Msimang, speaking to News24 after his election on Saturday, said the delegates were intentionally chosen from different races to return the party to its core Freedom Charter value that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as party leader, is expected to close the conference on Sunday.
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