The ANC Youth League in the Western Cape has thrown its weight behind Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their presidential candidate to take over from President Jacob Zuma.

The ANCYL also wants Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza to be her deputy, Free State premier Ace Magashule to be ANC secretary-general and ministers Nathi Mthethwa and Nomvula Mokonyane to be chairman and treasurer-general respectively.

Despite his protests earlier this year, the ANCYL has included Fikile Mbalula as second deputy secretary general, while they want Jessie Duarte to remain in her position as deputy secretary-general.

“There are a good crop of leaders, even in the top six, [but] we just don’t feel that for where we want to move now, the current top six, as it is, [will] take us where we need to be,” said ANCYL Western Cape chairman Muhammad Khalid Sayed.

He said the province nominated Mokonyane to be treasurer-general because she had worked in the Western Cape.

“The rationale behind Mokonyane is that we feel she is somebody who has been able to inject lots of vibrancy into the organisational machinery of the ANC,” said Sayed.

But some provincial executive members boycotted the meeting and ANCYL members who support Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed Zuma branded Sunday’s meeting as a “Dlamini-Zuma lobby” and lacking a quorum.

The ANCYL said that, as a critical body of opinion inside the ANC, they nominated the leaders whom they believed had the ability to play their part in a solid and united collective which would bring “economic freedom in our lifetime”. They have the “acumen to make a meaningful contribution towards the rebuilding of our glorious movement”, it said.