By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The ANC’s electoral committee will oppose an urgent application at the Gauteng High Court to compel it to provide raw data of all branch nominations for the 200 candidates for additional national executive committee (NEC) positions.
Electoral committee secretary Chief Livhuwani Matsila said on Monday said that “the instruction that we have received from the office of the secretary-general is that we should oppose the court application”.
Livhuwani was quick to add that the application did not seek to halt the elective conference, which is expected to kick off on Friday.
“They are seeking certain information and we are still getting clarity on that,” Matsila said.
In court papers, the members asked the court to compel the party to release the raw data.
It asked that: The First Respondent (chairperson of the electoral committee, Kgalema Motlanthe) be hereby ordered to publish an excel spreadsheet of all branch nominations received for all candidates nominated by branches for election in the 55th national conference of the African National Congress.
Leading the charge for the complainants was Isaac Mashaba, a member from Ward 30 in Sebokeng, Gauteng.
Mashaba argued that what the electoral committee published was a list that had already factored in gender parity.
He said it failed to satisfy the objectives of the 54th conference to establish the electoral committee so that electoral processes are conducted in a free and fair manner.
Meanwhile Carl Niehaus, took to social media on Monday to lash out at the ANC’s national disciplinary committee (NDC), describing it as “a number of minions” who were “empowered” by a “mafia gangster” in the form of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
He had immediately appealed against the ruling expelling him from the ANC, he said, which rendered his expulsion suspended, thus allowing him to remain a member of the party.
Niehaus was found to have brought the governing party into disrepute on all six charges, which involved his defending former president Jacob Zuma in the lead-up to the former president handing himself over and his subsequent jailing on contempt of court charges for failing to appear before the State Capture Commission.
The NDC, led by Uriel Abrahamse, and supported by Amanda Vilakazi and Mohammed Bhabha, said in its findings: “No member was exempted or allowed to adopt a posture which defined him or her as being bigger than the organisation.”