GAUTENG ANC RELEASES CANDIDATES LIST

JOHANNESBURG Sept 12 Sapa

The African National Congress in Gauteng on Tuesday released a
list of its candidates for November's local government elections,
including well-known talk show host Jon Qwelane who is standing in
Boksburg on the East Rand.

Other names on the ANC list include deputy secretary-general of
the National Union of Mineworkers Gwede Mantashe, and Lappe
Laubscher who recently crossed the floor from the National Party to
the ANC.

Only 41 out of the 420 wards in the province will not be
contested by the party.

Two of these are in Johannesburg's northern metropolitan
substructure which includes Randburg and another two are in the
eastern MSS which includes Sandton, Brynston and Alexandra.

"We have decided not to focus on areas where it is obvious that
the ANC does not have a support base," said provincial secretary
Paul Mashatile.

"We will probably tell our supporters in a particular area to
vote for an independent person if we are not standing in that ward.
This does not, however, mean that we will support any independent
candidate. Even they will have to ... have a progressive policy
like that of the ANC."

Mashatile said the ANC was working toward a 10 per cent
increase in the number of registered voters in greater Johannesburg
and would embark on an extensive election campaign.

"People who have witnessed the ANC's public forums can expect
the same thing from our candidates. We will have local public
forums where all the candidates that we have selected will be able
to answer questions from the public relating to concerns in the
areas in which they are standing."

Former Johannesburg city councillors Clive Gilbert and Martin
Sweet will contest wards seven and eight in the eastern MSS for the
ANC.

Randburg management committee chairman Gary Cooney, who
recently withdrew from politics with three other ANC councillors,
has been moved further up in the ANC's proportional representation
list.

Mashatile said the Pretoria central MSS was a major area of
concern because of the low voter registration figures there. About
639000 people have registered in the Pretoria metropole.

"We will focus mainly on Mamelodi and Atteridgeville and hope
to increase the registration figures by at least another 10 per
cent because they are so low there," Mashatile said.

The ANC will field six candidates for the central MSS, one of
whom is Laubscher.

"We will embark on door-to-door visits and other campaigns to
ensure that more people register and check that their names are on
the voters' roll before the closing of the supplementary voters'
roll on September 25," Mashatile said.

The DP will release their list of candidates on Wednesday, and
the IFP will release theirs next week. The NP is to release its
list on Tuesday night.