ANC Ward 2 candidate to stand in by-elections despite racism and intimidation claims

After dramatically withdrawing his name as the ANC’s councillor candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay’s Ward 2 by-election, Oliver Copley will now stand on behalf of the ANC.

This comes a week after Copley wrote to ANC Eastern Cape secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi, complaining about subtle racism and intimidation within the party.

Copley withdrew his availability after messages with “racial connotations” were shared on social media.

This comes as some branch members were unhappy that he was “parachuted” to stand as the councillor candidate by the provincial leaders instead of the Ward 2 ANC branch choosing its own candidate.

The branch has only 49 members in good standing and needs at least 100 to be a functional branch in line with the ANC’s constitution.

Copley said in his letter to Ngcukayitobi that he attended a “community meeting” of ANC members where he expected to be announced as the party’s Ward 2 candidate – after having being chosen by the regional working team.

But he got a “rude awakening” when another member, Sam Dlulane, was chosen.

“I have never felt thrown under the bus like this in my life . . .” he wrote.

“To add insult to injury, some people continued to discuss and share things about me on social media, and labelling ‘apartheid tactics’, ‘facebook police’, ‘hijacking’ and all sorts of discriminatory racial connotations to me, and I’m just not prepared to bring the organisation into disrepute over these elections.”

Copley added: “When I received a call on Monday [February 11] that I am the PEC’s (provincial executive committee) choice, everything inside me became uncomfortable at the thought at what the rogue elements from Sunday’s meeting would say or do, and after giving it some thought, I feel it’s confusing to me as to how my branch, my region and my province operates in sending different messages, allowing illdiscipline and disunity.”

Despite saying he was withdrawing as a candidate, Copley’s name was registered with the IEC to stand as the ANC’s candidate in the ward.

The by-election will be held in two weeks’ time on March 6.

ANC regional task team coordinator Babalwa Lobishe said Copley retracted the letter.

“He was just overwhelmed by the mixed reaction from other ill-disciplined members of the organisation but it’s an internal matter that we are dealing with.

“He is standing as our candidate. There is no crisis.”

Lobishe said the PEC had already registered Copley’s name with the IEC on February 11.

“On Wednesday, we met with Copley, we dealt with all his fears. But now everything is sorted,” Lobishe said.

Lobishe said the ANC was confident that it would win the ward.

Copley referred questions to the ANC regional task team.