Members of the ANC electoral committee will hold a “fact-finding” meeting with the party’s deputy president, David Mabuza, after receiving a letter from his campaign manager accusing committee members of manipulating the nomination process to exclude him from the race to be in the top six.
Mabuza, who wants to retain his position when the ruling party holds its elective conference in Nasrec, Gauteng in December, has failed to reach the required threshold of branch nominations to qualify to contest for a second term.
The former Mpumalanga premier was pitted against Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola and outgoing ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile, among others.
Mashatile is leading the race with more than 1 791 nominations while Mabuza received 196 branch nominations.
Sunday World has learnt that Mabuza’s campaign manager, Andrew Baloyi, has filed a formal complaint with ANC electoral committee co-ordinator, Chief Livhuwani Matsila this week, and implored him to investigate the manipulation of the nominations.
In a response that we have seen, Matsila told Baloyi that the electoral committee will revert to him after meeting with Mabuza to discuss the complaint.
“Dear Andrew. We wish to acknowledge your letter of regarding [sic] the nomination of Cde DD Mabuza. The electoral committee will revert to you upon establishing a few facts from Cde DD Mabuza. Warm regards, Chief Matsila – coordinator electoral committee,” reads the letter.
Attempts to get a comment from Baloyi were unsuccessful, as he did not respond to our text message and also failed to return our phone calls.
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe confirmed that the committee is looking into Mabuza’s complaint and said it will comment after the adjudication process has been completed.
“The integrity of this process is of utmost importance to the ANC. Therefore, it is only fair to allow the process to be concluded before commenting on the matter,” said Mabe.
“We are hopeful [that] by the time we go to conference, we would have resolved these disputes. In fact, the report on how these disputes would have been resolved will be tabled in the next virtual meeting of the ANC on December 9, and its next physical meeting on December 14.”
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