POLOKWANE – The ANC Peter Mokaba Region’s 10th regional conference is underway at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium following the resolution of a final internal dispute by the party’s National Dispute Resolution Committee on Thursday night.

The conference faced a last-minute attempt to halt proceedings when five concerned party members filed an urgent interdict at the Limpopo Division of the High Court.

Read more: Urgent interdict halts ANC Peter Mokaba regional conference

The applicants sought to delay the gathering until all outstanding branch-level disputes were resolved.

Judge President George Phatudi dismissed the application, which named six ANC leaders involved in dispute resolution matters as respondents. Judgment was delivered late Thursday night.

While the opposing counsel agreed with the core concerns raised in the application, the applicants’ legal team expressed worry that the ANC appeared willing to bypass its own rule requiring all disputes to be finalised before a regional conference may proceed.

Provincial secretary Reuben Madadzhe, who was listed as the fourth respondent in the matter, welcomed the court’s ruling.

“We are delighted by the judgement delivered by the judge president. We think this judgement will set caution to our members not to play manga-manga in court,” he told the media afterwards.

The conference is scheduled to run over the next few days.