Pretoria – The national working task team (NWTT) of the ANC Women’s League is pushing for equal representation of men and women in the top six of the ruling party at the 55th national elective conference which kicks off in Joburg on Friday.
“We are going to the conference of the African National Congress, not the Women’s League conference. Therefore, structures that were nominating for this conference, were nominating candidates for this conference. It is branches of the ANC, which have a responsibility to nominate whoever they want, as branches of the ANC,” NWTT spokesperson Dina Pule said to broadcaster “Newzroom Afrika”.
“However, as the Women’s League, we want to see the full representation of women. In the Constitution, it is stated that we indeed have to have a 50/50 representation and the argument comrades are forwarding is that the 50/50 representation is only meant for additional members of the ANC NEC (national executive committee).
“We are arguing that, that is actually mischief. We also think it is something they are creating to avoid making sure that from the highest structure, the ANC gets 50/50 representation. We are sticking to that. We are saying the (top six) officials of the ANC is a structure because every Monday they sit, they convene meetings and they take decisions. It is therefore a structure.”
In the current top six nominations, ahead of conference, only two women – Nomvula Mokonyane and Febe Potgieter are nominated for the position of deputy secretary-general. All other positions, including the president and deputy have male nominations.
“The branches of the ANC, if they do not wake up and realise that they have to lead by example, it is going to be very difficult. We have a feeling that we are regressing, because at some point we had two women in the officials of the ANC and we thought that in 2017 we were going to add, and have three women. We regressed to one woman, only the late comrade Jessie Duarte was elected as deputy secretary-general,” said Pule.
“Even now, the two women that are appearing in the nominations list of the top six – comrades Nomvula and Febe Potgieter – it is only on the deputy secretary (general) level. Nothing at level of president, deputy president, secretary-general or treasurer general. We are calling on the branches of the ANC to make sure that they support women.”
Thousands of ANC delegates are heading to the party’s 55th elective conference to be held at Nasrec Expo Centre in Joburg, which starts on Friday and ends on Tuesday.
The conference comes as the organisation is deeply divided as factions fight for the soul of the ANC. It also takes place as the party is being hauled to court over the nomination of candidates to the NEC, and some aspirant leaders being disqualified from standing for election.
IOL