Analyst: ANC unwilling to confront its problems

Ndletyana said the problems the ANC committed to rid itself of at the policy conference in July are now rearing its heads again at the party's PGC's.

''One has to wonder about the willingness of the ANC to confront its problems and stand power to malpractices."

The road to ANC's national elective conference in Nasrec has turned into a two-horse race between Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC MP Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Ramaphosa has a slight edge when it comes to branch nominations, something which Ndletyana conceded is quite expected.

''Cyril's candidacy indirectly started in 2007 when Jacob Zuma decided that the deputy president of the ANC must necessarily become the president and that became the mantra amongst ANC members.

''However, there are those who feel that the presidency must be contested and they've supported Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, but unfortunately her candidacy has been somewhat derailed because of her association with Zuma who has now become the icon for state capture.''

Irrespective of Ramaphosa leading the ANC provincial structure nominations with five provinces, KwaZulu-Natal lent astounding support to Dlamini-Zuma, which increased from 433 nominations to 454 after a delegate raised discrepancies in the number of branches that were announced on Monday.

The announcement was made by the Elexions Agency a during an open session at the KwaZulu-Natal provincial general council.

The same announcement revealed that 193 KwaZulu-Natal branches nominated Ramaphosa, a reduction of two votes. 

Ndletyana says the ambiguity of both the Mpumalanga and Free State PGC's are a concern.

Mpumalanga's ANC general council meeting saw at least 223 delegates in the province vote for "unity" in last week’s branch nominations. The province are adamant that the ruling party needs to be unified and will not announce they preferred candidates to lead the party until there is a unified slate.

Similarly, Prof Ndletyana warns that inasmuch as ''the ANC has to be united, in order to improve its prospect of doing well in the 2019 elections'', it needs to define the kind of unity it wants.

However, the ANC leadership woes in the Free State still remain after the provincial leadership term came to an end in May and the Bloemfontein High Court ruled that the ANC branches convened ahead of the national conference were unconstitutional, unlawful and irregular.

The ruling further rendered the PGC outcome nominating Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their preferred leader null and void, as the decision emanated from irregularly constituted branches.

Irrespective of the court ruling, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said the leadership in the province is still legitimate.

Speaking at the post ANC National Executive Committee media briefing on Monday, Mantashe said all disputed provincial general council meetings need to be re-run before the elective conference.

''We have a national conference that is going ahead and we will not make assumptions on what could happen or not. We run an organisation and are working very hard to make sure that the conference is successful and stable, anarchists should be dealt with by provinces.

''There were processes. Vetting was given and the branches have until Saturday to reconvene meetings.”