Former health minister, Zweli Mkhize — whose presidential campaign received a shot in the arm when the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) became the latest party structure to endorse him — registered a resounding victory in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
A day after the ANCYL national task team (RTT) endorsed him during its meeting held on Sunday, reports from the ANC KZN provincial executive council (PEC) meeting held in Durban on Monday show that a substantial number of ANC branches in the province have endorsed him.
Members of the PEC received reports from the ANC’s eleven regions in the province on how branches across KZN nominated candidates for the ANC national elective conference scheduled for December.
According to an ANC PEC member who spoke to The Witness at around noon on Monday, “an overwhelming” number of the branches in KZN have endorsed Mkhize.
What we are doing currently is to consolidate the results from all the province’s regions. While the consolidation process is continuing, what’s clear is that most of the branches [more than 70%] have endorsed Mkhize.
In Mkhize’s home region of Moses Mabhida, which includes the Pietermaritzburg area, more than 90 of the region’s close to a 100 branches are reported to have endorsed the former health minister.
Mkhize, who is also the former KZN premier, is expected to slug it out with Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who also enjoys support from some ANC branches, particularly in the north of the province. While some of the KZN branches, particularly in regions such as Nkosi Mbambatha, have endorsed President Cyril Ramaphosa — Mkhize is ahead of both Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa in KwaZulu-Natal.
KZN, which in the 2017 ANC national elective conference settled for Dlamini-Zuma over Mkhize, is expected to send the highest number of voting delegates to the December conference compared to the other eight provinces.
While KZN also enjoys support from the ANC’s other key provinces such as Gauteng, Eastern Cape, and Free State, the ANCYL National Task Team (NTT) is the first ANC structure outside KZN to endorse Mkhize.
The NTT, which in ANC national elective conferences has similar voting rights as the party’s PECs, believes Mkhize has what it takes to lead the ruling party.
ANCYL NTT member, Sizophila Mkhize, said the majority of the ANCYL NTT were of the view that Ramaphosa lacked decisiveness when it came to matters of national importance.
Like the ANC KZN leadership, the ANCYL NTT agreed that acting ANC secretary-general, Paul Mashatile, should be the party’s next deputy president.
While a section of the ANCYL NTT endorsed Ramaphosa, the majority is behind Mkhize.
The ANC national executive committee (NEC) will soon hold a special meeting to consolidate the nomination results from the nine provinces.
To become a candidate at the conference, an ANC member needs to be nominated by 20% of the party’s branches nationally. However, ANC members who did not meet the 20% branch nomination threshold could still be nominated by delegates at the actual conference.
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