ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile has urged the ANC to consider allowing its members to openly use money to campaign for positions at conferences. Mashatile said, however, that the party should heavily regulate this by forcing contenders to disclose their funders and allow it to peruse their bank accounts. He was talking to the Sunday Times on the sidelines of the ANC’s national general council (NGC) in Boksburg, where his performance and that of the cohort of leaders elected at the 2022 Nasrec national conference is being assessed.
He said though NGC was unlikely to make a decision on allowing the use of money on internal campaigns, it was a discussion that could no longer be avoided. According to Mashatile, contemporary politics across the world goes hand-in-hand with materialism. Though the ANC historically comes from a different ideological view on leadership battles, the party has now been thrust into “realpolitik”, where the use of money cannot be avoided.
Mashatile said this was evident during national and local polls where political formations that do not have adequate funds fail to register their candidates with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). “Resources and money play a very big role in politics,” he said. The ANC is confronted with this and could no longer avoid the discussion.
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“We were saying in the ANC, and I think that will come soon, that open it up, make it transparent, don’t fight it. Don’t fight the use of money, make it transparent,” said Mashatile. “Just say, ‘you want to contest to be SG of the ANC?
Let’s see who is your funder,’ because we see people wearing T-shirts with your name, where do you get the money? Because inevitably, those contesting have to transport their supporters, have to get material. So what the ANC must do is say: what are the rules.” The use of money for campaigning was first raised by the ANC’s electoral committee led by former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe ahead of the 2022 ANC conference. Motlanthe’s committee came up with rules to guide how contenders can campaign, which included allowing those contesting for top six — now top seven — positions to use their money to arrange public debates.
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