The ANC electoral committee has upheld former MP Tony Yengeni’s appeal against his disqualification from contesting for positions during the party’s elective conference starting in Nasrec near Soweto on Friday.
Yengeni was disqualified last week after he failed the vetting process.
The committee said at the time that members who were previously convicted with sentences longer than six months cannot contest for leadership positions in the national executive committee (NEC).
Yengeni appealed the decision. In a letter addressed to electoral committee’s chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe on Monday, Yengeni said he has served his time and that his conviction has been expunged.
According to the former MP, he has no criminal record in the eyes of the law, arguing that there are not grounds for him to be barred from being elected to the NEC.
Yengeni was sentenced to four years in prison after he was found guilty of fraud for not disclosing a discount he received for a Mercedes-Benz he purchased in 1998.
“Firstly, it is true that I was found guilty and sentenced to four years imprisonment for which I served four months. After more than 10 years of the sentence, I applied to the director-general of the Justice and Constitutional Development for the expungement of my criminal record,” Yengeni said.
“My application for expungement was accordingly approved. The resolution on which you seek to disqualify me from participation at the upcoming 55th national conference of the ANC was only taken in 2017.”
He shared further: “However, I had been sentenced more than 15 years since then and had also been punished by the ANC for the said offence; and to now seek to apply the 2017 conference resolution in retrospect to offences committed prior thereto is both unlawful and unconstitutional.
“I would like to make it clear that in the eyes of the law, I have no previous conviction and or sentence.”
He has proven his case beyond reasonable doubt, according to Motlanthe, who said the committee has decided to uphold his appeal.
“The electoral committee has duly decided to uphold your appeal based on the substantive reasons and proof of the expungement of your criminal records as furnished by yourselves,” Motlanthe said.
“We, therefore, wish to confirm that you are no longer disqualified from being a candidate for the NEC positions during the 55th national conference of the ANC due to take place on 16-20 December 2022 at Nasrec.”
Although he has won the appeal, Yengeni, who was not listed among the 200 candidates nominated for the 86-member executive committee, will need to be nominated from the floor at the conference to make it on the ballot.
Also read: Yengeni appeals disqualification from contesting
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