ANC STATEMENT ON THE NATIONAL LIST CONFERENCE

In line with its democratic process of nominating its cadres as Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Provincial Legislatures (MPLs), the African National Congress (ANC) is pleased to report that all provincial list conferences held on the weekend of 17 and 18 January 2009, have now been completed.

The ANC's National List Committee (NLC) is currently consolidating all nomination lists from provinces in preparation for the National List Conference to take place over the weekend of the 24th and 25th January 2009 at Esselen Park in Ekurhuleni. ANC President Jacob Zuma will officially open the National List Conference.

We are committed to the process of building a government on the principles of transparency, fairness and consultation. The ANC has placed much emphasis on selecting candidates for Parliament and provincial legislatures that have a track record of involvement in communities, who are familiar with consultative processes, and who are able to forge partnerships in implementation.

We are also pleased by the character of the provincial list conferences and have noted high levels of participation by branches through delegates. These were preceded by Branch General Meetings (BGMs) where nomination of candidates started.

ANC branches selected candidates on the basis of their own experiences and inter-branch consultation.

Guided by the ANC list guidelines adopted by the National Executive Committee (NEC), national and provincial list committees - as the key structures of the national list process - were tasked to, among others, address key issues like:

• Screening of candidates to ensure minimum required number of branches for nomination (five branches).
• Criminal and insolvency status and general conduct of nominated ANC cadres.
• Compliance of the list with the ANC Deployment Policy requirements.
• The ANC National List Committee will also ensure that the Appeals Committee deals with all appeals from individuals, branches and provinces after the National List Conference.

Statement issued by African National Congress Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, January 21 2009