Polokwane - A proposal that names be drawn from a hat in the event of a tie in the ANC's leadership race was made by the party's electoral commission on Sunday.
Chairperson Berta Gxowa was listing the commission's rules for the ANC national conference in Polokwane, to be adopted before President Thabo Mbeki presented his political report.
If a tie arose after voting was done, she proposed, the names of those tied to take a particular position should be put in a hat. The name drawn should be declared the winner.
Another rule that emerged during her presentation, was that no cameras or cellphones would be allowed in the voting area.
This came after reports that delegates would be paid to vote for particular candidates once they provided a picture of the said vote on their ballot paper.
Singing and campaigning were also barred from the area where delegates would cast their ballots.
ANC electoral commission chairperson Berta Gxowa evoked a chorus of boo's when she told delegates on Sunday morning: "Counting will take place electronically."
This would be done through the use of scanners under the scrutiny of provincial onlookers.
Where disputes cropped up, the votes would be counted manually, Gxowa said.
The ANC Youth League strongly opposed the notion of electronic vote counting.
The issue posed a problem for ANC chairpeeson Mosioua Lekota when the league refused to let-up on its proposal that votes be counted manually.
He eventually appealed to the floor for a motivation on why this was necessary.
"What is not transparent about electronic counting?" Lekota asked.
The Youth League's Sihle Zikalala said manual counting was preferred because the ANC was a "transparent organisation".
Earlier, leading Eastern Cape Zuma loyalist Phumlo Luswale said: "Our position is that all votes should be counted manually."
Muswale, SA Communist Party regional leader, was addressing delegates from Eastern Cape's OR Tambo region outside the main conference venue.
"We reject any suggestion to have votes counted by a computer as that could easily lead to vote rigging," he said.
The matter of manual vote counting was left to be dealt with later.
Nominations from the floor could be made in addition to the provincial and league nominations already made.
However, such a delegate would require a 25% backing from delegates to be accepted as a nominee, Gxowa said.
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