The ANC has a comprehensive offering to South Africans for the upcoming Local Government Elections that does not depend on individual mayoral candidates.
This is according to Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, who was briefing the media on the sidelines of the party’s Special National Executive Committee meeting in Boksburg.
Mbalula said while each of its more than 10,000 councillor candidates was equal to the task, they should not be viewed in isolation, as the party placed greater value on its “people-centred” manifesto.
He said the party would only announce its mayoral candidates in the lead-up to the manifesto launch, scheduled to be held in Diepsloot, Johannesburg, on 23 August.
“This is an ANC campaign. It’s not a mayor’s campaign. We have interviewed people based on our criteria. We want people who are able to run municipalities, who are qualified, have proper credentials and are therefore in a position to lead sophisticated budgets.
“Based on our experience in the past, we just nominated people and put them in positions of responsibility to manage budgets and lead municipalities. That has posed questions over time and to us. So we were given a mandate to deal with what is called an independent Troika nomination, which is what we have done.
“So the officials have finished that work. So they will finish it and we will announce all our candidates at the central place,” said Mbalula, responding to what he believes to be pressure from the media.
The Secretary-General attributed the delay in announcing the candidates to a thorough vetting process.
“We have interviewed every mayor in the country. And I think we have undergone a process of vetting of these people, which is what is delaying us, because we don’t want to announce and tomorrow they’ve got scandals and all of that.
“So we are thorough in terms of the process,” said Mbalula.
Mbalula said communities had been consulted on both the manifesto and candidates.
“Our candidates have been taken to community meetings. We’re supposed to field our candidates by the 1st of September. So our process is more than 10,000 candidates we are dealing with.
“Our processes are coming to this weekend; it is the final deadline. And therefore, we are the largest party by measure.
“And therefore, communities have been involved. And the process itself is very vibrant. There are people who feel that in that branch, my candidate, the candidate was undermined.
“We’ve got to deal with all of those things. But the mayors were done. We’re done,” he said.