Eastern Cape ANC candidates must pass leadership courses before elections — Mabuyane

Eastern Cape ANC candidates will have to pass four short leadership courses if they want to be considered for deployment in the upcoming local government elections.

Delivering his political overview during a virtual  ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) meeting on Sunday, party chair Oscar Mabuyane said the move was aimed at ensuring good governance and building a capable and developmental state.

Candidates will go through the OR Tambo School of Leadership before consideration for council seats.

The same would apply, Mabuyane said, in the 2024 general elections.

“We will have to fulfil our commitment of ensuring that we deploy only the best among us to political and administrative positions in government,” he said.

“We must deploy only cadres who have a thorough grasp of tasks at hand, who have requisite skills and capabilities needed, and more importantly whose hearts and minds are in serving the people of our province diligently.

“We have a dilemma where our cadre deployment policy is constantly being called into question because of the conduct of our deployees in positions of responsibility.

“This is why all our candidates will have to complete the four online compulsory courses as a requirement for selection.” 

He said the provincial ANC could not afford to go to the municipal elections and party elective conferences planned for later this year with fragmented structures and at loggerheads with alliance partners.

“The unity of the alliance is crucial, and this PEC must develop a programme that will work to strengthen those relations.

“We need solutions to problems that are creating tensions within the alliance.

“We must find each other, and do so not just for the sake of elections, but for protecting our unity and cohesion.”

Reflecting on the ANC's chaotic 2017 provincial elective conference in East London, dubbed the festival of chairs after it disintegrated into violence and chair flinging, Mabuyane said: “We all know how painful the road we travelled towards that conference was, and this alone should be a reminder that we cannot walk that road again.

“We cannot afford to tear each other apart in the manner that we did ahead of that conference.

“This time around, let there be a festival of ideas rather than what we saw, which was diametrically opposed to the character and values of the ANC.” 

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