2024 Elections: Factional ANC rifts laid bare in Ramaphosa’s terrain

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ancestral ANC region in Limpopo is slowly but surely becoming a playing field for ANC factional battles, with many saying this may have a detrimental effect on the party’s performance in the upcoming 2024 general elections.

This became evident this week during the Limpopo ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) meeting in Polokwane.

The party could not agree on the name of the cadre to replace the slain Collins Chabane local municipality mayor Moses “Big Moss” Maluleke, who was gunned down in July last year at his Shikundu home, outside Malamulele town.

The ANC had asked the party’s regional leadership in the Sekhukhune and Vhembe regions to send three names for a possible replacement of current acting Sekhukhune district municipality executive mayor Maleke Mokganyetji and the late Maluleke.

It was the three names sent by Vhembe’s regional executive committee (REC) members which displayed widening cracks within the Limpopo PEC and the Vhembe REC as members could not agree on the names owing to protracted factional battles.

In its executive committee ordinary meeting on 31 July, the region resolved to recommend the following names for mayor for Collins Chabane: Shadrack Maluleke, Faith Chauke and Zanele Sunduza.

But because she allegedly did not meet the requirements as stipulated in the ANC constitution, Sunduza later withdrew her name from the list.

Vhembe ANC regional secretary Rudzani Ludere said the REC accepted the withdrawal and resolved that her name should be replaced by Simon Xihlamariso Mavikane.

“Our choice of the name was guided by organisational renewal and unity, skills, competency, expertise, experience, continuity and gender representation,” said Ludere.

But REC members could not agree on the name. Some requested the PEC intervene urgently, to no avail.

Then they turned to the party’s national leadership, asking for Fikile Mbalula, Cyril Ramaphosa and convenor for ANC deployees to Limpopo, David Mahlobo, to intervene immediately.

The members claimed some of the names forwarded did not meet the requirement and that the party’s deputy regional secretary, Miyelani Chauke, was ostensibly excluded due to factional battles, despite having got the nod from both REC officials and the regional working committee.

PEC spokesperson Jimmy Machaka said the party would not respond to the allegations.