ANC’s Boy Mamabolo challenges omission of his name on party list
Mamabolo alludes to suspicion that a regional member of the party may have had a hand in his name not featuring on the final candidate list.
Koketšo Sekhwela
ANC Limpopo Member of Parliament, Boy Mamabolo’s urgent application for the ANC Provincial Elective Committee (PEC) to disclose the candidates for this year’s election, will be heard in the Johannesburg High Court on April 9.
Mamabolo is challenging the removal, and or omission of his name from the party’s list of candidates who were nominated for parliamentary positions after the general election scheduled for May 29.
Mamabolo further seeks to interdict the party from finalising nominations and appointments in the final provincial list of candidates for the election.
In his urgent application, Mamabolo refers to an earlier WhatsApp conversation between him and a senior member of the ANC’s Electoral Committee, which he told Polokwane Observer provided reason enough for him to suspect that a regional member of the party may have had a hand in his name not featuring on the final candidate list.
In the screenshots of the conversations he shared with Polokwane Observer, Mamabolo enquires about the chances of his name featuring on the list and the respondent advises that he politically aligns with this regional member in order to be successful.
Polokwane Observer’s WhatsApp enquiry to the person who sent the message, was left unanswered.
âI did not pay much attention to the advice at the time, because I did not have any difficulty with him. He is my comrade and therefore, we are naturally aligned. Therefore, I did not take any further steps in terms of positioning myself otherwise,â Mamabolo remarks in the document.
In the application he said it later surfaced that the advice he had been given was, however, ânot innocuous as I had understood it to be.
He was cautioning me to align with a particular faction within the ANC to ensure that my name remains on the candidates list without difficulties,â he clarified.
Mamabolo’s application is an attempt to get the ANC to share the raw data of branch nominations with the court on his behalf, after he alleges not having been successful with the request made to provincial secretary Reuben Madadzhe earlier this month.
Mamabolo stands resolute that the close to 110 branches he claims nominated him, should be sufficient to ensure his place on the list.
He told Polokwane Observer that he has also been interviewed and vetted successfully prior to the process.
Mamabolo furthermore accuses the PEC of allowing party members who are in power to interfere with nominations from branches and requests that the committee be replaced with a task team.
ANC provincial spokesperson Jimmy Machaka did not respond to requests for comment on the matter, while ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu -Motsiri also did not respond to questions.
Madadzhe could not be reached for comment at the time of going to print.
