Nearly three-quarters of eligible ANC branches have completed their branch general meetings, required for their participation in the party’s national conference in December.
Nearly three-quarters of eligible ANC branches have completed their branch general meetings, required for their participation in the party’s national conference in December, with a matter of days before the adjusted cut-off date on Monday.
A total of 2 836 branches out of a possible 3 979 had completed their meetings to nominate their leadership choices for the top six and the national executive committee (NEC) by 30 October, while 1 173 were scheduled to hold theirs over the weekend.
The deadline for completing the meetings has already been shifted twice because of technical issues and a large number of branches having to rerun their meetings more than once as a result of repeat disqualifications.
Teams from Luthuli House, lead by ANC head of organising Nomvula Mokonyane, have begun the verification process and held virtual meetings with the provincial secretaries on Tuesday and Wednesday to deal with any queries or issues regarding the process.
Once verification is completed, vetting takes place before the final list for the top six and NEC is published, later this month, ahead of the conference, which sits from 16 to 20 December.
The progress in addressing the backlog in branch general meetings has allayed concerns over delays in meeting the 70% threshold required for the conference to take place.
The closest to completion is the Northern Cape, which has held all but 16 of its 226 branch general meetings (93%) and was expected by the head office to wrap up over the weekend.
KwaZulu-Natal, the largest province with 835 branches, had completed 682 or 82% of its meetings, with the provincial leadership confident that a default judgment in favour of one of the branches in its Josiah Gumede region would have “no material effect” on its preparations for the conference.
The KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC) was barred from attending the 2017 conference by the court after the outcome of the 2015 provincial conference was successfully challenged by supporters of ousted chairperson Senzo Mchunu.
Provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo said this week that they were not concerned that history might repeat itself.
This time around, disgruntled members of the Sisonke branch in the Josiah Gumede region went to court last year to challenge the outcome of their branch general meeting, held as part of the build-up to their regional conference.
Their application was granted by default by the South Gauteng high court because the ANC national leadership had failed to oppose the matter, the summons for which was left with the security guards at Luthuli House during last year’s strike by ANC staff members.
The party was this week approaching the court to seek a rescission order, Mtolo said
Mtolo said that the default judgment had been granted “accidentally” because the papers had been served during the strike.
Mtolo said the branch general meeting result had “no material impact” on the outcome of the provincial conference earlier this year. “The outcome of one branch can have no material impact on a provincial conference of more than 790 branches.”
The Eastern Cape, the second largest and second most influential of the ANC’s provinces, had only managed 424 of its 621 branch meetings, leaving nearly a third of its meetings to conduct in a few days.
Limpopo, with 559 branches, still had to hold 129 branch meetings, while the Free State, one of the ANC’s most troubled provinces, has only conducted 122 successful meetings out of a possible 280, leaving more than half to be completed by Monday.
North West, an equally troubled province that has been run by a series of interim leadership structures since 2017, has completed 236 of its 342 branch meetings, while Gauteng still had to hold 176 out of 468 meetings.
In Mpumalanga, where 73% of the 361 branches had held their meetings by 30 October, the process has been marred by acts of violence and intimidation, including the killing of one ANC member and the wounding of another at a branch meeting in Mbombela last weekend.
The ANC Siyanqoba rally in 2019.
The province, whose leadership has pronounced in favour of a second term for ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, will have the fifth largest delegation at the conference.
The Mpumalanga PEC met at the weekend to assess progress and discuss the ongoing violence, saying afterwards that although the branch meetings were “progressing very well” the “horrendous act of violence” at KaNyamazane and the broader acts of intimidation needed to be dealt with and the perpetrators brought to book.
“There is no amount of discontent or disagreement which should make members of the ANC to attack and fight one another. This infighting is uncalled for and has no basis in our democratic organisation, which runs its processes [democratically],” provincial secretary Muzi Chirwa said.
“In the contestation of leadership, we always abide by the decision of the majority and are expected to support and work with those elected. We cannot allow a situation where some seek to forcefully impose their views on others.”
Chirwa called ANC members at the KaNyamazane zone to order, saying that “members of the ANC must respect the rights of other members to participate in ANC meetings without disturbance”.
Chirwa said that apart from the violent disruptions, other difficulties had included scanning problems and issues around the functionality of QR codes issued by Luthuli House. A number of branches had failed to make quorum, and it was hoped they would join the 225 that had done so by the time of Monday’s deadline.
Mpumalanga has joined KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape in censuring former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma for their public criticisms of Ramaphosa and raised questions about the “political intentions” of these attacks.
“The presidents have the right to air their views using the correct platforms — which is the NEC meetings or the integrity commission,” Chirwa said.
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