ANC members attempt to halt Northern Cape elective conference

A group of Northern Cape ANC members yesterday travelled to Luthuli House, the party’s headquarters in Joburg, to pressure the national leadership to stop next week’s provincial elective conference.

The small group represents a number of aggrieved ANC members who demand that the conference, scheduled for May 11 to 15, be postponed because of flawed membership audit reports submitted to party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.

They claimed that memberships were duplicated, with some memberships cloned, and that this had to be corrected before the conference went ahead.

The audit reports were signed by Mantashe, reportedly after a verification process.

“We want to ensure that this issue is put on the agenda of the office bearers and the NWC [national working committee],” said Eric Kgotseng, the spokesperson for the concerned members.

“We are hoping that the NWC will stop the conference because too many issues would be affected by the outcome of the conference.”

He argued that the ANC leadership should intervene in the Northern Cape in the same way it did to stop a regional elective conference of the ANC Ethekwini region because of infighting.

The visit to Luthuli House is a sequel to a legal challenge by Kgotseng and three party members, Richard Nxamashe, Andrew Samson and Nombulelo Modise, who instructed lawyers to demand that the party provincial executive committee (PEC) postpone the conference until all duplications or cloning of memberships were corrected.

“We are not taking the ANC to court but are challenging people who manipulate things in the run-up to the provincial conference,” Kgotseng said.

The provincial secretary, Zamani Saul, was adamant the talks would go ahead as planned. Saul said Kgotseng and his colleagues were not members of the PEC and did not belong to any leadership in the party and, therefore, had no constitutional standing to challenge the process. Saul alleged the four were being used as pawns.

“We know they are pushing an agenda for someone,” he said. The conflict is due to an ongoing power struggle between two ANC factions in the province: “Zamdesh”, led by Saul and PEC member Deshi Ngxanga, and “Sylvin”, led by provincial treasurer Sylvia Lucas and Alvin Botes.

Saul will challenge Lucas for the provincial chairperson portfolio. Zamdesh is known to support Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma, while Sylvin backs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

ANC national spokesperson Khusela Sangoni said she was not aware of the visit by the Northern Cape delegation.

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