ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa has described allegations of vote-buying at party conferences as rumours and unacceptable.
Ramaphosa was speaking to journalists in Tembisa on the sidelines of a door-to-door campaign on Wednesday. The party is making its final push for votes before the November election.
“Those are rumours that we hear but obviously, as the ANC, we are completely against the buying of votes.
“Our delegates are supposed to go to conferences and vote for the candidates that they believe will advance the interests of the ANC and the interests of our people.”
Ramaphosa described vote-buying as unacceptable in ANC structures.
“As we renew the ANC, that is one of the areas where we say we must root out wherever it exists.”
Ramaphosa was previously accused of using R1 billion to pay delegates during his 2017 presidential campaign to ensure that he ascended to power.
Last month, senior ANC member and national executive committee member Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma accused party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and Ramaphosa of buying delegates to ensure that they won the conference.
During an interview with the African Renaissance Podcast in August, Dlamini Zuma said there was a problem in the ANC whereby leadership outcomes were decided through the buying of votes.
She said money had played a big role in the 2022 ANC elective conference and that some of the current ANC leaders elected at the conference had won their positions because they had used money to influence the outcome.
Dlamini Zuma said Mbalula had been dishing out money to delegates at a clinic to ensure that he won the conference. The money had been used to ensure that he and ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa were elected.
Mbalula has since filed court papers demanding that Dlamini Zuma retract her comments, arguing that they were calculated to defame him. However, she has refused to do so and filed her own court papers on Saturday.
In a media briefing on Tuesday, Mbalula said he wanted anyone who claimed to have seen him dishing out the money to come forward.
“I did not have it and I did not [use money]. Even tomorrow, I can withdraw this thing if she can say she made a mistake. In my papers, I explain that I did not do this thing.”
Mbalula said the party could not allow people to use money to buy conferences. If it did, the ANC would end up being ruled by people who had money.
