MBOMBELA – The Save ANC Mpumalanga says they have no other choice but to set up alternative leaderships within the party.
They have exhausted all available avenues to fight the slate voting in the ANC’s branches in Mpumalanga, and now all that is left is to open parallel structures.
They have marched on to the party’s provincial headquarters, and have threatened court action to stop the provincial elective conference.
The national executive of the party have not been of assistance, and now they will form parallel structures in the party’s branches to combat the existing process of electing councillors ahead of next year’s local government elections.
The faces of the movement, Mr Sipho Monareng and Mr Senzeni Ngubeni, have reiterated numerous times that their grievances centre around the hand-picking of candidates for councillors and the manipulation of membership to determine the outcomes at elective conferences.
The decision by these “unmandated delegates” for the provincial chairman Mr David Mabuza to stand for a third term, and for the Mpumalanga elective conference to be brought forward to this year, are therefore unconsitutional.
The campaign recently told the press at Peponi Lodge outside Mbombela that although they had an agreement with the provincial executive committee (PEC) to resolve issues without the media, the processes and problems continued.
“We thought the ANC would intervene in the affected branches, but we have given them ample time to do that. Now we will resolve disputes ourselves.
“We will reinstate branches that were disbanded illegally. We will conduct the process of nominations in all branches where they have been tampered with by the ANC.
“We are going back to the branches, seeing that there is no provincial executive to lead the way. We will ask the community to elect their own people who will be councillors.”
They noted that the Bushbuckridge Residents Association (BRA) emerged because people were imposed to lead.
“They want to manage the election of councillors so that when the community gets angry they are already in office.
“We cannot be seated as spectators while they violate the constitution of the ANC.
“There will be two ANCs in the community, with the one asking the people who must lead. We are going towards an ANC where we will be sorry to have been a part of it. They don’t understand it is not about them, but the love of their people.”
Mr Simeon Ginindza, former MEC in the provincial government, added, “Good comrades have been sidelined in this glorious movement of the people, for the people. The ANC is not the ANC we know.”
The campaigners said they were ready to take the matter to court, but would do so only as an absolute last resort.
- See also: Save ANC Mpumalanga puts court on hold
