The top five leaders of the ANC in the Western Cape are expected to be announced first thing on Saturday morning, following the voting that will take place throughout the night after nominations were made at the conference on Friday night.
This was according to provincial spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni when he briefed the media about the late start to the conference at Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The conference has been marred by glitches in the registration of delegates and the last-minute changes to the names of branch delegates.
Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula was set to deliver his keynote address at the opening of the conference.
“The secretary-general will open the conference and provinces’ convener will give the political report of the interim provincial committee (IPC) and the co-ordinator the organisation report.
“All those will be in open session,” Mtsweni said.
He also said immediately after the political and organisational reports were presented to the conference, the electoral agency will present a report on those nominated for the top five positions and also ask for nominations from the floor.
Mtsweni said when the nominations were finalised for the top five positions, voting will start “even if it is at 12am or 1am”.
“Tomorrow (Saturday) morning when we wake up, we are going to get the result of who is the new chairperson in the Western Cape and the provincial secretary, and then start the nominations for additional members,” Mtsweni said.
The highly contested provincial conference will see IPC convenor Lerumo Kalako butt heads with ANC leader in the Western Cape legislature, Cameron Dugmore, Qubudile Dyantyi and Justin de Allen for the position of chairperson.
The position of the provincial secretary could see outgoing co-ordinator Thandi Manikivana squaring up against former Hawks boss and IPC deputy co-ordinator Anwar Dramat, head of policy Nomi Kondlo and former West Coast regional secretary Neville Delport.
Mtsweni briefed the media while the IPC was holding its meeting with Mbalula and members of the national executive committee.
He said the meeting was finalising all documents that would be presented to the conference.
Mtsweni said the meeting was also dealing with a report on the credentials list of eligible delegates to the conference.
“For us to finish these credentials, we need that other 20% to be done,” he said in reference to delegates that were still to be registered.
He said they wanted to be thorough and ensure only those delegates that were meant to be at the conference were in attendance.
“Before we present the credentials, the IPC and the NEC must be satisfied that every process was done. What we do is a thorough process. We don’t want a conference to sit here for three days discussing one issue, which is credentials.”
Mtsweni also said they did not want to face legal challenges over who had attended the conference.
“You know that many provinces have gone to court purely on process matters so we try to make sure all processes are fine and everything is done. I can confirm the conference will proceed today (Friday) and the SG will open the conference and the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) will close the conference on Sunday,” Mtsweni said.
Cape Times