High court rules ANC KZN election unlawful and invalid

The Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday morning ruled that the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal 2015 elective conference was unlawful and void.

ANC councillor Lawrence Dube and four others took the provincial party leadership to court in May last year to declare the legitimacy of KwaZulu-Natal’s 8th provincial elective conference, held in November 2015 in Pietermaritzburg, null and void.

The case dealt with alleged irregularities in the arrangement, hosting and auditing of the 2015 conference.

The case was brought before the court against the ANC’s sitting provincial executive committee (PEC) by members from 43 so-called rebel branches that want the conference declared illegal and a rerun to be held.

The repercussions of the case go beyond the province, which has the largest ANC support base countrywide. ANC KZN chairperson Sihle Zikalala, who was present in court during the last sitting, leads the current PEC.

Under Zikalala’s leadership, the province is firmly backing former African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to lead the party after its December 2017 national elective conference.

The rebels, whose de facto leader is believed to be Senzo Mchunu, are backing Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mchunu lost to Zikalala at the disputed conference.

Reading the decision, Judge Jerome Dube set aside the conference and its outcomes and ordered Zikalala to pay the costs.

Many ANC members, some of them Members of the Provincial Legislature, as well as mayors, greeted the news with jubilation, saying they had been vindicated.

– Additional reporting African News Agency

#ANCKZN This is the order stating that the 2015 provincial conference has been declared, "unlawful and void." pic.twitter.com/vHlGeuyxST

— MaNdosi (@SthembileCel) September 12, 2017

ANC STATEMENT ON #ANCKZN CONFERENCE JUDGMENT pic.twitter.com/5hO02us1MV

— African National Congress (@MYANC) September 12, 2017