JOHANNESBURG - The rout of the Mbeki-ites within the African National Congress continued this week. On Monday the newly-constituted 86-member National Executive Committee (NEC) met to elect twenty members to join the top six officials on the ANC's National Working Committee (NWC).

The results, formally announced on Tuesday, saw no let up in the determined exclusion of known supporters of Thabo Mbeki from the top structures of the ANC. The new NWC is now almost wholly composed of (former) ANC outsiders and those insiders astute enough to have distanced themselves from Mbeki's re-election campaign well before the ANC's Polokwane conference.

Only four of the twenty members elected on Monday had served on the previous NWC. These were Minister of Arts & Culture, Pallo Jordan; Housing Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu; Transport Minister, Jeff Radebe; and, Sasol general manager, Max Sisulu.

New members include Tony Yengeni, currently on parole following a fraud conviction; Siphiwe Nyanda, former head of the South African National Defence Force and now CEO of Ngwane Defence; outgoing head of the ANC Youth League, Fikile Mbalula; Sports Minister, Mankhenkesi Stofile; and, Nomaindia Mfeketo, the former mayor of Cape Town.

In terms of the ANC constitution the NEC is required, at its first meeting following conference, to elect additional members to the NWC from among the members of the NEC directly elected at conference. This number must not exceed "one-quarter of the composition of the directly elected members." This meant that following the expansion of the number of NEC members directly elected at conference from 60 to 80, the number of NWC members elected from the NEC could be increased from 15 to 20.

The NWC is composed of the president, deputy president, national chairperson, secretary general, deputy secretary general and the treasurer general, these twenty members, and (in an ex-officio capacity) the leaders of the ANC's youth and women's leagues.

Of the 26 elected members of the NWC only seven had served on the old NWC. There are no individuals from the Mbeki camp in the new NWC either. This is despite the fact that this group enjoyed the support of some forty percent of the delegates at conference.

The NWC is essentially the ANC's executive committee and as such is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation. Despite its name the NEC performs policy making and oversight functions.

The ANC constitution requires the NWC to "carry out decisions and instructions of the National Conference and the NEC"; conduct the current work of the ANC; and, "ensure that provinces, regions, branches and all other ANC structures, such as parliamentary caucuses carry out the decisions of the ANC."

During Mbeki's second term as ANC president the six top officials met on a weekly basis, the NWC every two weeks, and the NEC every two months.