According to ANC insiders, Marius Fransman is the favourite candidate for the Western Cape’s top spot.
|||Cape Town - As Western Cape ANC branches start voting their preferred-for national and provincial candidates after next year’s elections, party insiders said Marius Fransman could be the party’s preferred candidate for premier.
Other names, including former provincial leader Chris Nissen, Phillip Dexter, Nosey Pieterse, and even former Gauteng police commissioner Mzwandile Petros, appear on provincial lobby lists of preferred candidates for deployment to parliament after next year’s elections.
ANC members in the Western Cape started to convene branch general meetings last week to nominate the leaders they want to represent them in the national and provincial governments.
Surprisingly Fransman, the deputy minister of international relations, stays on the provincial legislature list, followed by his deputy, Abe Pekeur, and Maurencia Gillion, the party’s deputy secretary.
Party insiders said this might suggest that Fransman was settling down permanently in the province and giving up his international relations portfolio. It also suggested that Fransman would be the ANC’s preferred candidate for premier.
The Cape Argus has seen at least three ANC lobby lists doing the rounds, including the so-called “unity list” purportedly drawn up by warring factions now set on a united front.
And while the nomination lobby lists have raised the ire of several members, others were satisfied that efforts are being made to accommodate all.
Dexter, who was roped in to help run the ANC’s election campaign in the province after rejoining the ANC following his stint with Cope, is eighth on the province-to-national list, followed by Nissen, a former Western Cape ANC leader at No 12, and Nosey Pieterse, the organiser of the recent farmworkers’ strikes in the province, at No 16.
Petros’s name made a surprise appearance under nominations for the national parliament.
Fransman said the ANC had identified credible individuals who felt the Western Cape was moving backwards in terms of transformation and equality. As a result the ANC was reaching out to “everyone”.
Other Western Cape names on various lists to go to parliament include ANC MPLs Lynne Brown and Mcebisi Skwatsha, ANC provincial treasurer Fezile Calana and former Human Settlements MEC, Richard Dyantyi.
Confirming that his name was not on the national list, Fransman said: “I’m making myself available on the provincial list. I don’t know what the structure will do but I will put my faith in the structure.”
The ANC provincial chairman also called on comrades “not to have factional list in the Western Cape”.
Fransman said at the last provincial executive committee meeting the provincial executive thoroughly discussed the list processes.
“We must make sure that the list process is being managed in such a way that it does not break the morale of the structures. So the call is on all structures and leaders to heed the call of cohesion.”
But, despite the calls for unity, the third list which was drawn up and widely circulated months before the province’s nomination process opened, completely snubbed Fransman and instead saw the name of suspended spokesman for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, Lionel Adendorf, on top for the provincial legislature.
Skwatsha was on top of the province-to-national list followed by Max Ozinsky. Adendorf was suspended after he wrote a letter to the Cape Times criticising Fransman.
Asked about the list, Adendorf said he was aware of it but declined to comment, saying it would be wiser to allow the ANC’s list processes to run their course.
Insiders were also concerned that the lists contained the names of serving councillors, who have been barred by the party from being included on 2014 national and provincial lists.
There is resistance and frustration in the regions over barring councillors, insiders confirmed.
But Fransman said: “We all need to heed the call of the national executive committee that councillors should not be on the list other than in exceptional cases which will be assessed individually.”
Others hoped that the issue would not turn ugly.
“Not everyone is happy with the names on the list - it’s far from perfect at all,” another member said.
On all three lists, President Jacob Zuma is the preferred candidate for the national Parliament, followed by ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa. Two lists also name Kgalema Motlanthe in third place.
Cape Argus