The ANC's national list conference is currently in its second day, where the list of who will be deployed to the National Assembly is expected to be finalised.
The meeting, held at Coastlands Hotel in Umhlanga, north of Durban, is being attended by the party's national executive committee members and alliance partners, Congress of South African Trade Unions as well as the South African Communist Party.
Following the conclusion of the list conference, the NEC would have consolidated the party’s list of candidates for the National Assembly for the upcoming general elections, provincial legislature as well as National Council of Provinces.
The interim list of 800 names that have been submitted to the NEC will be trimmed down to 200 names.
“What will ultimately happen is we will probably end the list at number 200 for the National Assembly. Now there is already 870 names that have been put forward, so what will happen is that people with the highest number of votes tally across the country make it to the top 25 percent of the list; those names remain untouched," said ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte on Friday.
List of 200 National Assembly candidates to be finalised at ANC conference
The ANC's national list conference is currently in its second day, where the list of who will be deployed to the National Assembly is expected to be finalised.
The meeting, held at Coastlands Hotel in Umhlanga, north of Durban, is being attended by the party's national executive committee members and alliance partners, Congress of South African Trade Unions as well as the South African Communist Party.
Following the conclusion of the list conference, the NEC would have consolidated the party’s list of candidates for the National Assembly for the upcoming general elections, provincial legislature as well as National Council of Provinces.
The interim list of 800 names that have been submitted to the NEC will be trimmed down to 200 names.
“What will ultimately happen is we will probably end the list at number 200 for the National Assembly. Now there is already 870 names that have been put forward, so what will happen is that people with the highest number of votes tally across the country make it to the top 25 percent of the list; those names remain untouched," said ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte on Friday.
"Below that, we look at the skills and experience and we hope that we will be able to retain at least a fifty percent to sixty percent of people with experience who have been in Parliament or legislatures before," she added.
Duarte said that the ANC has not ruled out the return of certain members to Parliament, despite them being viewed as members who could cost the party votes in the general elections in May this year.
While addressing members of the media yesterday, Duarte said that the NEC would carefully scrutinise members on the list, adding that the main thing that would disqualify a candidate from being sent to Parliament is if they had been found on the wrong side of the law.
"Where a person hasn’t been charged criminally, and there’s no decision by a judge finding him/her guilty or has been sentenced to a jail term. There’s very little that we do in terms of the broader perspective that might emerge around particular individuals."
President Cyril Ramaphosa, former President Jacob Zuma and SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande are among those attending the meeting.