ANC delegates vote for party's top six

Officials from EleXions Agency, overseeing the party's 54th national elective conference, read out the final consolidated nominations for each of the party's top six positions on Sunday evening.

It will be a head-to-head race between presidential candidates Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's respective slates in every position.

Two individuals will compete for each position respectively, following multiple withdrawals in the deputy president, treasurer general and deputy secretary general positions.

The candidates are:

President: Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

 Deputy president: David Mabuza and Lindiwe Sisulu

 Chairperson: Gwede Mantashe and Nathi Mthethwa

 Secretary general: Senzo Mchunu and Ace Magashule

 Deputy secretary general: Jessie Duarte and Zingiswa Losi

 Treasurer general : Paul Mashatile and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane

Register, voting tags

The commission will start preparing the final ballot with all 12 candidates from 19:00 on Sunday.

Once ballots have been printed on Sunday, marshals will call out voting delegates to the voting hall in blocks of 200.

At the hall, they will be asked to provide both their accredited conference voting tags, and some form of ID.

Their names will then be ticked off on the register of 4776 names provided by the party to the commission.

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Delegates will then be given one ballot form each, with all six positions on the form.

They will be requested to make their mark for their preferred candidate per position, fold their ballots, and place them in the ballot box.

Provincial monitors, elections staff and the ANC's own electoral commission will be observing.

Once voting begins, they will complete the process in one session, meaning voting will go through the night.

The official results are expected to be announced some time on Monday, deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte announced earlier on Sunday.

Fights over procedure

It was clear during the party's open plenary session that the competing slates wanted less stringent rules for the various voting procedures.

One delegate from the Free State said they did not need to provide identification, as their accredited voting tags were in effect their IDs at conference. At this, others howled at the prospect of fraudulent representations.

For the election of the party's 80 additional national executive committee members, to be decided on later, others wanted to be provided with a list of all names nominated.

"It is impossible to remember 80 names," said one Mpumalanga delegate. He said the party had always given delegates a list from which to choose their picks for the 80 members in the past.

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The ANC's electoral commission however, chaired by Sindiso Mfenyana, earlier ruled that delegates would not be provided with a list of names for those positions.

"We need to get rid of slates once and for all," he said. "Delegates must vote for the candidates that they know."

In the end, it was NEC member Naledi Pandor who supported a proposal for the party to come back to the NEC process at a later stage, and rather finalise the party's elections of its new top 6.

Results will likely trickle through only after 09:00 on Monday, with an official announcement closer to the afternoon.

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