ANC NEC member Andile Lungisa says his exclusion from the party’s candidate list for Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has been resolved.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape, Lungisa said the party’s NWC had resolved the matter.
He said his name would again be included on the PR candidate list.
“The national chair (Gwede Mantashe) spoke of the will of the people… my name will be brought back,” Lungisa said.
He said the party would have opportunities to supplement its candidate lists after the elections.
Lungisa’s comments come after he launched an urgent court challenge against ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula over his exclusion from the party’s candidate list for the November 4 local government elections.
He approached the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, accusing Mbalula of personally ordering that his name be removed from the ANC’s Nelson Mandela Bay candidate list despite his candidacy having gone through the party’s internal processes.
Lungisa wanted the court to declare his exclusion unlawful and compel the party to reinstate him on its PR candidate list.
Lungisa challenges Mbalula’s authority
Court papers show that Lungisa claims his candidacy had been endorsed through ANC structures before his name was removed ahead of the submission of the final list to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
Lungisa alleges that Mbalula convened a meeting in Johannesburg and instructed officials to remove his name from the list.
“Mr Mbalula convened the meeting envisaged in clause 9.6.5 at a hotel in Johannesburg and instructed the officials to remove my name,” Lungisa states in his court papers.
He alleges that Mbalula believed his candidacy would cause unspecified “problems” for the secretary-general.
Lungisa argues that the ANC’s candidate-selection rules do not give Mbalula unilateral authority to remove a candidate after a list has been approved.
According to the court papers, changes to a finalised candidate list can only be made on “very serious grounds” and require the agreement of 80% of the ANC’s extended NEC.
Lungisa maintains that his name was still on the candidate list when the NEC met around August 27 to finalise candidates.
“But this did not happen,” he says in the papers, referring to the prescribed process for altering the list.
He claims several ANC members who were present when Mbalula allegedly ordered his removal are prepared to support his version under oath if the secretary-general disputes the allegation.
Wider ANC candidate-list dispute
Lungisa’s legal action comes as the ANC faces a wider dispute over its candidate lists ahead of the local government elections.
IOL previously reported that the ANC approached the Electoral Court after the IEC refused to process candidate information affecting 181 ANC candidates across six municipalities.
Mbalula told the media that 130 PR candidates and 51 ward candidates were affected.
The ANC maintains that their information had been captured on the IEC’s electronic system before the August 28 deadline but had not been successfully submitted as final.
“We asked to add no name. We asked to change no list. We asked for no late nomination and no late extension of any deadline,” Mbalula previously said.
He argued that the central question before the Electoral Court was whether information uploaded to the IEC system before the deadline could legally be regarded as having been submitted.
The IEC has rejected claims that technical problems with its system prevented parties from completing their submissions.
On September 15, the party lost its Electoral Court challenge against the IEC over 181 candidates excluded from the November 4 local government elections.
The party says it will appeal the judgment.
Other prominent ANC figures affected
Lungisa was not the only prominent ANC figure affected by the candidate-list problems.
ANC veteran Reverend Frank Chikane, who was being considered for the Johannesburg mayoral position, and Nocawe Mafu, a mayoral contender in Buffalo City, were also reported to have been omitted from candidate lists.
Mbalula previously acknowledged that some mayoral candidates were left off the lists because of what he described as an “error”, saying the party intended to resolve the issue.
“You also reported about the issue of mayoral candidates who are not on the list; that is an error and it will be resolved because they belong [on] the PR [proportional representation] list,” Mbalula said earlier this week.
Lungisa’s court challenge, however, alleges that his exclusion was not simply an administrative mistake but followed a direct instruction from Mbalula.
