minutes
Rehana Rossouw
THE Free State African National Congress member who has launched a court challenge to the organisation’s decision to nominate Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as premier for the province is still trying to unearth who made the original nomination.
The ANC last year successfully challenged Edmund Qhali’s bid for urgent relief in the Free State Supreme Court, but no decision has yet been made on the merits of his application.
Qhali has asked the court to overturn the decision, claiming “transparency, democracy and justice … was miscarried when Terror Lekota was removed from the premiership for having taken a firm and credible stand against corruption.”
No date has yet been set for the supreme court hearing, but Qhali’s lawyer and the ANC’s legal representatives are exchanging information in preparation for the case.
In the ANC’s response to Qhali’s urgent interdict last year, the organisation annexed minutes of a meeting in Welkom on December 1 attended by branch executive members and a task group led by Labour Minister Tito Mboweni which was sent to the province to restore political order. Members were attempting to discover who nominated Matsepe-Casaburri.
The minutes read: “Comrades questioned the lack of consultation by the caretaker committee and wanted to know where Comrade Ivy had been identified as a premier candidate for the Free State. They also questioned at what meeting the national executive committee had decided that she would be the only candidate.”
Doubts about Matsepe-Casaburri’s popularity in the province were reinforced last weekend, as she lost out to Zingile Dingani as the organisation’s provincial chair. Dingane and most of the others elected to the senior posts in the new regional executive committee are Lekota sympathisers.
Party insiders said Dingane’s election was a clear message from the province’s members to their national leadership, which had encouraged them to elect Matsepe-Casaburri as chair, that they were unhappy with its meddling in provincial affairs.
A newly elected member of the Free State ANC provincial executive committee said Qhali’s case was supported by a “significant” number of branches. Some members are committed to helping finance his court battle.
The ANC did not respond to questions about whether it would provide Qhali’s lawyers with the minutes they are seeking.