Through the garage door – blindly choosing from the pre-selected
The African National Congress (ANC) will, later this year, hold its 54th National Conference, which among others will elect the national leadership of the organization for a five-year term, assuming that part of the ANC Constitution will not change.
Fortunately, the nominations for the leaders that will be elected are not yet open, so this text (and its author) is unlikely to be misperceieved as punting one leader or the other. However, discussing the principles around leadership is encouraged in preparation for the nomination time.
At its January 2017 Lekgotla, the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) said, through the a media statement,
“Branches will hold their BGMs/BAGMs during September and October 2017. In line with the 2016 NGC Resolution that the branch is the basic unit of the ANC, that slates must be outlawed and that serious action must be taken to prevent and deal with the practice of slate, the NEC resolved [to] do away with the practice of consolidating nominations for leadership at a regional and provincial level. Branches must be given the right to nominate. Consolidation at other levels tampers with the authority of the branches to nominate. All nominations for leadership from branches will be consolidated nationally by the Electoral Commission.”
This is a noble and very necessary intervention by the NEC. It will probably be followed by clear guidelines on how the nomination process should unfold. Until then, it seems practically unworkable, desirable as it may be.
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