Phumzile Mgcina's bid to become the next deputy president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has suffered a setback on Saturday.
This after 27 voting delegates from Inkosi Bhambatha (Umzinyathi district) region — who were expected to back her — could not be registered to take part in the ongoing conference.
It has been alleged that the northern KZN region did not submit its list on time, hence the exclusion of 30 delegates. Of the 30, 27 had voting status.
According to Andile Kunene, the spokesperson of the ANCYL in the region, the reason why they were unable to register was because of their regional secretary, Khaya Zondi.
He said Zondi failed to register them on time and efforts to convince the steering committee to register them had not yielded positive results.
“As I am speaking to you the entire delegation from Inkosi Bhambatha region is not going to take part in the conference,” a frustrated Kunene told IOL from Nasrec where the elective conference is taking place.
“Our regional secretary Khaya Zondi did not register us on time and the doors have been shut on us,” he said.
“He is not even here as we speak, his phone is off and probably sleeping at his hotel while 30 delegates are unable to take part in the conference.”
Zondi denied the allegations, saying he submitted the list to the ANC headquarters, Luthuli House, but when they got to the venue, none of their delegates were able to register.
“We went to audit on time in eThekwini. We finished the audit in Luthuli as we were told it was late to audit us. We finished audit and got our audit report signed by the coordinator,” Zondi said.
“But when we got to registration venue, after a whole day of waiting non of our delegates were allowed to register, without any clear indication of what was wrong. Even now no one has been able to give us a clear reason of why our region is excluded.”
In another setback, one of the chief lobbyists for Mgcina, Siphelele Kunene, is also watching the conference from the sidelines.
Kunene who is from Ward 6 in Dannhauser in KwaZulu-Natal hoped to be included as a regional executive committee (REC) member of the Mbuso Kubheka (Amajuba district) youth league, but only two delegates from his region were taken in.
According to IOL sources at the conference, only two delegates from Mgcina's region were able to make it to the conference and vote.
One of the two delegates was Kunene’s deputy and another unidentified one from Ward 1 in Dannhauser.
“Kunene was not able to be registered as a delegate and as we speak he is watching it from the sidelines despite being a chief lobbyist,” said the source that spoke to IOL.
Mgcina will likely be up against Thabiso Mngadi who is also from KwaZulu-Natal. However, Mngadi’s fortunes are tied to delegates who will nominate him from the floor.
This was because he was not able to garner the 20 percent threshold to be nominated to be on the ballot like Mgcina.
IOL Politics