The ANC is to deploy a total of 4 723 voting delegates from its branches to the national elective conference in December‚ with KwaZulu-Natal having the biggest delegation at 870.

The total number of delegates is a marginal increase from the previous conference in 2012 when there were 4 500 delegates.

Mpumalanga has toppled the Eastern Cape as the ANC’s second biggest voting bloc‚ with David Mabuza’s province emerging as number two to KwaZulu-Natal with a total of 736 voting delegates.

The Eastern Cape‚ the province of newly-elected chairperson Oscar Mabuyane‚ is number three with 648 delegates.

The numbers are contained in an internal ANC memo sent to the party’s provincial secretaries by Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe‚ which the publication has seen.

“The above calculation is based on a calculation where a branch with a minimum of 100 members is entitled 1 delegate and for every additional 250 members the branch is allocated 1 additional delegate‚” Mantashe said in his letter.

The Eastern Cape had always been the second biggest voting bloc in the ANC‚ particularly in the two previous national conferences of 2007 and 2012.

The figures come as divisions in the various provincial structures of the ANC are increasing and as the date of the highly anticipated conference gets closer.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former AU chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are seen as the frontrunners in the race to succeed President Jacob Zuma.

The province of Limpopo has 643 voting members from its branches‚ followed by the North West with 538. Gauteng will have 508 branch delegates.

The Free State will be represented by 409 branch delegates while the Northern Cape and the Western Cape will have 197 and 182 branch voting delegates respectively.