ANC to quell fires in Eastern Cape branches

ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters is set to dispatch a high-powered national team to deal with violence that bedevils the party structures in the Eastern Cape, where physical confrontations and killings are on the rise.

Eastern Cape provincial leadership postponed all branch general meetings (BGM) at the violent hotspots – Dr WB Rubusana and Nelson Mandela regions – to let Luthuli House find a solution to the conflict.

Representatives from all the seven ANC regions in the province have been summoned to a crisis meeting at the ANC’s Canon James Calata provincial head office in King William’s Town from Tuesday to Thursday next week.

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Alfred Nzo and Sarah Baartman regions would be attended to first on Tuesday followed by Amathole,  Nelson Mandela and Dr WB Rubusana on Wednesday.

The team would finish its task by meeting OR Tambo and Chris Hani regions on Thursday.

All the ANC regions in the Eastern Cape were expected to hold elections before the provincial elective conference, but it is clear this could be delayed, or the polls not held due to regular violence at party meetings.

Nelson Mandela Bay was the latest to experience violence after an ANC ward councillor, Mzwandile Booi, was shot dead in KwaZakhele township this week.

In Dr WB Rubusana, a physical confrontation broke out among members causing the ANC provincial working committee on Monday to postpone all BGMs indefinitely.

The fight was a sequel to the disbanding of 11 branches by the provincial executive committee amid accusations by the regional and branch executives this was a factional decision by the leadership.

The province appointed branch task teams and sidelined the actual branches – resulting in the two structures operating parallel to each other in all branches.

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ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi said: “The BGMs must be put in abeyance until a proper assessment has been done of interventions to calm the situation down. This is done to prevent further risk of harm to people’s lives.”

The province also stopped all BGMs at Nelson Mandela Bay region following Booi’s murder.

Recently, ANC councillor and member of the mayoral committee at Amathole district municipality Nanziwe Rulashe was violently dragged to the floor and thrown of out the municipal offices by security personnel who were allegedly instructed by the municipal manager to do so.

It is believed Rulashe’s attack was part of the ongoing factional battles in the region.