The ANC is at war with itself less than three months before local government elections, with members openly showing their displeasure with the party’s national chair, Gwede Mantashe, on Sunday.
While Mantashe was allowed to make introductory remarks at the funeral service of former Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association president Kebby Maphatsoe in Soweto, when he started delving into politics the crowd interrupted, chanting him offstage with songs calling for former president Jacob Zuma to be freed from jail.
Meanwhile, the ANC top brass was locked in a crisis meeting at the weekend after the Constitutional Court on Friday rejected the application by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to postpone the local government elections.
Though legal opinion is mixed on what the verdict means for the ANC, and SA’s apex court did not give reasons for rejecting the IEC’s argument that the scheduled municipal poll could not be free or fair due to Covid-19, Business Day understands the ANC has interpreted the court’s order to mean the IEC may reopen its candidate submission process. This has prompted opposition parties to threaten legal action if the IEC agrees to the ANC’s request, as the ANC failed to submit full candidate lists in 93 of the country’s 278 municipalities.
This could result in a change of government in dozens of towns and metros.
The ANC’s national executive committee, the party’s highest decision-making body between national conferences, will report back after its weekend meeting.
The IEC is expected to give direction on Monday on its interpretation of the Constitutional Court judgment that municipal elections must happen by November 1.
In the absence of the court’s reasons for its decisions, analysts have been cautious in their remarks. University of Cape Town law professor Pierre de Vos wants to know what the minority of the justices thought.
“At least the majority found a way to say the election must go ahead, because they were asked to make a decision in a way that suggests they would be to blame for a bad election.”
De Vos is of the view the order does not open a back door for political parties to review their candidate lists. “They cannot really change the timetable, which is important,” he said.
The DA has already announced five mayoral candidates to contest the country’s metros, where coalitions are again expected to take centre stage. In 2016 its mayoral candidates won Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. The DA has been on the campaign trail for a while and is due to launch its manifesto in September.
“Covid is going to be with us for a long time. Given the vaccination rates in SA we can’t put our lives and our democratic processes on hold waiting for the virus to leave,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.
EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini told Business Day that though the party is contesting the elections it does not believe the polls will be free and fair. The party has registered candidates in all 4,468 wards countrywide, and its manifesto launch is scheduled for September 26.
Dlamini insisted the party will not scale back campaigning and does not expect its supporters attending the launch to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
With Erin Bates and Thando Maeko
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