A battle in the ANC over whether to give an election thumbs-down to cadres implicated in corruption and misconduct is likely to come to a head on Monday, 4 March.

On Monday morning, the ANC top brass meet at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg to finalise the party's election lists. A battle -- that cuts across the ANC's factions and leagues -- about corruption and who gets on to the election lists is roiling the party.

At the weekend, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo was drawn into the fray when he denied a City Press report which claimed that Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe had successfully challenged the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. (The commission recommended further investigations into Mantashe related to security installations by Bosasa, the facilities management and catering company at the heart of South Africa's story of corruption.)

Mantashe said City Press had not contacted him before publication and confirmed the courts had yet to hear his review.

Zondo said: "The statement in the City Press that Minister Mantashe successfully challenged the State Capture Commission report is simply not true. The City Press failed to do a basic investigation on this. The true position is that Minister Mantashe's review application is still pending and has not yet been decided. In fact, no review application against the commission's report has been decided."

It...