The disgruntled ANC members wanted the high court to declare the 9th ANC conference in the North West as unlawful. Picture: Michel Bega
The North West High Court in Mahikeng has rejected a bid by disgruntled African National Congress (ANC) members to overturn last year’s provincial elective conference.
In October last year, ANC members in the province lodged a legal challenge after alleging that they had been removed from the first and second leg of the conference, and that delegates who were not on the list had been substituted in their place.
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The members wanted the high court to declare the 9th ANC provincial conference, which elected Nono Maloyi as the party’s provincial chair, unlawful and to invalidate all decisions taken at the conference held in August last year at the Rustenburg Civic Centre.
One of the applicants, Sello Molefe, accused ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile, who was the governing party’s acting secretary-general at the time, of perjury, fraud and forgery.
Molefe alleged that Mashatile misled the North West High Court in Mahikeng when he submitted an alleged falsified affidavit to justify the reappointment of the then North West interim provincial committee (IPC) after its term had expired.
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In the affidavit, Mashatile said the IPC was reappointed by the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), the party’s highest decision-making structure in between conferences.
ANC provincial spokesperson Tumelo Maruping welcomed the high court judgment dismissing the members’ legal challenge.
“We are happy that the matter has come to its finality but we anticipated the outcome because we have been very firm before that the merits of this case lack basis and we want to encourage our comrades that in future they exhaust internal protocols of the organisation processes as provided in the constitution of the ANC,” Maruping told SABC News.
Earlier this month, the ANC in the province expelled five councillors at Mamusa Local Municipality in Schweizer-Reneke and a member of the provincial legislature (MPL) after they were found guilty on several charges including undermining ANC structures and committees, breaching their membership oath, and failing to carry out the party’s mandate.
This was after the expelled members voted with opposition parties on different occasions.
Some in the ANC see the expulsion of the eight as the harshest treatment yet meted out within the ANC, noting that it was unheard of for an MPL, especially a sitting portfolio committee chair, to be expelled for doing a great job to ensure the executive was held accountable.
Additional reporting by Lunga Mzangwe and Eric Naki
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