It is an "opportune" time for developing countries to offer a candidate for the position of head of the International Monetary Fund, African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday.

"We strongly believe that the time for the developing world to bring a candidate to serve as head of the IMF is more opportune now," Mantashe said.

He was speaking at Luthuli House in Johannesburg at a press briefing following the party's national executive committee meeting.

He said the ANC believed such positions should be "based on merit and their expertise to act and not on their skin colour or national origin".

It was not for South Africa to propose former finance minister Trevor Manuel as a candidate, and as such, no pronouncement of this nature would be made.

Rather, the developing world should deliberate together to offer a person for the job, against the backdrop of the developed world's monopoly of the post in previous years.

On the conflict in Libya, Mantashe said the ANC endorsed the African Union's intervention.

"We also join the continent and all peace-loving people of the world in condemning the continuing aerial bombardments of Libya by Western forces."

Mantashe confirmed that President Jacob Zuma would visit Libya on Monday, but could not give exact details as to the agenda of the South African delegation.

The ANC was resolved to dissuade the West from driving regime change at the expense of human lives.

"It is not our call, it is the call of the Libyan people," he said.

The delegation was committed to repatriating the remains of South African photo-journalist Anton Hammerl, who was killed by Muammer Gaddafi loyalists in the town of Brega on April 5.

Turning to the recent local government elections, Mantashe said the NEC had appointed a team to investigate manipulation of candidate lists for the local government elections.

The team would be chaired by Minister of Home Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and would be briefed on Monday as to time frames and terms of reference for the investigation.

Mantashe said the elections had been "a steep learning curve", as the party had responded to reactions from communities, ranging from protest to acceptance.

"When people said that we (the ANC) started campaigning late, we actually started putting up (election) posters in October (last year)," he said, adding that the campaign had "hotted up" two months prior to the election.

In response to allegations that comments by senior ANC leaders may have alienated minority voters, Mantashe said the number of coloured people voting for the ANC had increased in the local government elections.

"Statistics is a strange science. The overall number of coloured voters (for the ANC) increased, even though the percentage declined."

This was to do with increased voter turn-out, he said.

Mantashe reiterated the party's mandate as a party of transformation, saying that the NEC was "satisfied" that provinces had "tried hard" to appoint at least 50% female mayors.

Saying that gender parity was "not just a numerical issue but a political one", Mantashe explained that it was "not enough" to have a fair gender split in terms of numbers if women were appointed mainly to small municipalities.

"The smaller the municipality, the smaller the revenue. If we appointed women only to the smaller municipalities that would be setting them up for failure," he said.

The ANC would visit regions to conduct "thank you rallies", to show voters appreciation for their support.

He said "door-to-door" visits by councillors should not cease with the election results.

Rather, this should be an on-going process to ensure that councillors were kept in touch with issues in the communities that they serve.

Mantashe said Sunday's media briefing on the May NEC meeting would be the last time that the elections would be discussed.