ANC divided as ever, with FS and WC provinces the worst of the lot

The Free State ANC is set to host the party’s 111th anniversary commemoration which will be marked by the reading of ANC January 8th statement by its re-elected president Cyril Ramaphosa – but infighting among ANC members in the province continues.

Free State and the Western Cape could not participate in the recent ANC national conference at Nasrec because they failed to hold their provincial conferences.

The Free State conference had since been postponed to next month – most probably after the January 8th statement rally in Bloemfontein – but Western Cape was yet to determine its date.

Free State infighting shows no sign of abating

Organising the Free State provincial conference had become difficult due to continuous factional infighting at provincial and regional levels especially in the Mangaung metro region. The province has two factions and in Mangaung, the two structures recently held separate elective regional conferences.

The differences between the interim provincial committee, (IPC) led by Mxolisi Dukwana as a convener, and his rival, Thabo Manyoni, have not been reconciled yet. They are competing for the provincial chair position at the upcoming provincial conference.

Each was accusing the other of being the cause of the separation. Manyoni and his faction believe Dukwana and his IPC sidelined them and consulted people outside the camp instead of working with them.

Also Read: ANC Free State: Luthuli House to blame for division within structure

The Dukwana faction was of the view that Manyoni became power hungry when he decided to contest Dukwana instead of going for the deputy position as initially envisaged.

Since the time of former provincial chairperson Ace Magashule the Free State ANC had had a series of infighting episodes. The province could not participate in the 2017 elective conference and a previous provincial conference and its decision were nullified by court.

The court battles continued as there were threats to take Dukwana’s IPC to court, should it go ahead with the provincial conference without some members of the IPC sidelined and many branches not having held branch general meetings.

The province was also faced with many candidates for the chairs, including Dukwana, Manyoni, education MEC Tate Makgoe and premier Sisi Ntombela.

Recently, Ntombela was accused by some members of having dispensed cash to delegates at Nasrec to boost her campaign.

She vehemently denied it over the weekend, claiming the allegations were peddled by individuals opposed to ANC unity and to dent her credibility before the provincial conference.

Western Cape’s weak leadership conundrum

With Nasrec over, the focus would now be on Free State and Western Cape, the only two provinces that did not hold elective provincial conferences. The Western Cape suffers from weak leadership, despite the fact that some regions had completed their elective conferences.

In the Western Cape, it is difficult to even pinpoint who the provincial leader was because he was nowhere to be found towards the national conference.

The silent Lerumo Kalako is the provincial convener and Ronalda Nalumango is provincial coordinator.

But the election of Nalumango into the ANC national executive committee at Nasrec left a gap that must be filled. The party constitution does not allow a member to serve in two structures and she had opted for the highest body.

The Western Cape is a difficult province for the ANC, which lost its governance over the province in 2009.

Also Read: Lynne Brown, Rasool, Dramat to help take WC ANC to conference

The Democratic Alliance had been in power since, with no hope the ANC would ever return to the helm.

ANC insiders believe that the party needed to accept the fact that Africans are a minority in the province and that, if it wants to win, it must elect a coloured leader. An attempt by the party in the Western Cape to experiment with Africans had failed.

Besides Kalako, the province had a fair number of stronger leaders within the IPC, including Faiez Jacobs, Cameron Dugmore, Khaya Magaxa and Ebrahim Rasool.

But since its election in August 2019, the IPC failed to take off, which recently prompted the ANC Youth League members to protest, demanding the holding of the provincial conference, which was overdue by three years.

Rasool, Magaxa and Faiez once served as provincial leaders.

The ANC was founded at Waaihoek in Bloemfontein on 8 January 1912, and its military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe, was established shortly thereafter on 16 December 1961, following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960.
– ericn@citizen.co.za